Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Oh...I was hoping reading that link will tell me what "realists" want, and what a "realist" pov is re US foreign policy.

i think every realist will have their own take but walt is generally good in FP for that sort of thing

i guess my larger gripe at the time was that alienating your allies is not an effective foreign policy strategy if you're an interventionist or a realist - and if you're an isolationist you can't be happy bc O keeps intervening abroad. it just seems incongruent to me - like he doesn't really have much of a fp strategy.

like "good, obama is being really harsh to our allies and telling them how it really is" like okay who does that benefit? maybe if you aren't planning on running missions in iraq + syria and dropping drones all over the middle east it's not such a big deal if you piss off the egyptians, turkish, israelis, saudis, etc. but if you plan on being so hands-on you are going to need some of these ppl to participate + work w/ you.

But Obama did not cut off military aid to Egypt; not sure what he has done that the Saudis could view as threatening; and re the Turks, are you comfortable with the games they have played re Kurds and Isis?

I think even "allies" though look to their own self-interests first and even if Obama had been even nicer to Turkey, they still would behave as they have.

Obama is clearly not an isolationist dove nor a hawk (to the degree that he would be sending troops everywhere), so he might argue that he himself is a realist, even if some would see him as more hawk-like clearly

like "good, obama is being really harsh to our allies and telling them how it really is" like okay who does that benefit?

Theoretically that benefits the US standing as some sort of examplar for good, and as a message to the people of those countries; even if it aggravates the leaderships of those countries. This is that realpolitik discussion that took place on another thread I think, re Egypt. Would Egypt turn on us if we cut off military aid?

So I skimmed that FP article about Obama being mean to our allies, especially Turkey, and the writer quotes a Wall Street Journal opinion for support (ugh). The FP article doesn't cite or discuss the various allegations re Turkey's stance, and seems a tad light.

Harper's November issue has a very, very good piece on ISIS

Saw Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and band Friday night in DC. Bassekou said,"Sharia's done with and over in Mali, please come and visit."

But this article says there's still issues:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201410281176.html

http://ottomansandzionists.com/2014/10/29/sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones-and-so-will-words/

- Israel instated next level apartheid by not allowing Palestinians on Israeli buses.
- Pull ambassador from Sweden because Sweden acknowledged Palestine as a nation state today
- "Swedish FM: Happy to send Israel FM Lieberman an IKEA flat pack to assemble. He'll see it requires a partner, cooperation and a good manual"

haha is that a real quote

It is! FM also said, less jokingly, that "many might feel us recognizing Palestine as a nation state is premature. But I fear in many ways it is already too late'

(FM quote comes courtesy of Barak Ravid, Haaretz journalist)

this is a really interested development re hezbollah:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/after-losing-1000-men-in-syria-hezbollah-builds-security-zone/

http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/india-chooses-israel-over-us-for-latest-defense-purchase/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-backed-syria-rebels-routed-by-fighters-linked-to-al-qaeda/2014/11/02/7a8b1351-8fb7-4f7e-a477-66ec0a0aaf34_story.html

uh oh

This story has a very "the frogurt is also cursed" feel to it.

Doh!

lmao these fantasies

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/05/23/burning-the-steak/

Last fall I met up with an old friend in the security consulting business. We met for breakfast at an upscale hotel in the DC area. As he was having a second cup of coffee he leaned forward and said, “I’m going to say something crazy, but I can be frank with you.” He paused and added, “what we need is a new East India company.”

“Go on,” I said, mildly surprised. And he continued in a lowered tone, but not without looking first to the left and right.

According to his own bio Fernandez played a role in the anti-Marcos movement in the Phillipines. Clearly he has buddies who know that everywhere in DC, especially upscale hotels, one needs to keep their plans for the US to save Iraq and Afghanistan secret. That Roger L. Simon column on that site engages in a different sort of fantasy, although more typical--Obama paranoia

Opium trade, anyone?

http://www.timesofisrael.com/marmara-case-closed-ramallah-learns-going-to-icc-not-easy-as-abc/

good news everybody:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/11/07/us_troops_in_iraq_will_double

I thought this was a pretty incredible story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/magazine/theo-padnos-american-journalist-on-being-kidnapped-tortured-and-released-in-syria.html?ref=magazine

(Reuters) - The highest-ranking U.S. military officer said on Thursday that Israel went to "extraordinary lengths" to limit civilian casualties in the recent war in Gaza and that the Pentagon had sent a team to see what lessons could be learned from the operation.

Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged recent reports criticizing civilian deaths during the 50-day Gaza war this year but told an audience in New York he thought the Israel Defense Forces "did what they could" to avoid civilian casualties.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/11/09/iran_s_khamenei_israel_must_be_annihilated.html

conservative Israeli prez Rivlin pays a price for endorsing civility

Around Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Rivlin made a video in which he sat next to an eleven-year-old Palestinian Israeli boy from Jaffa who had been bullied: the two held up cards to the camera calling for empathy, decency, and harmony. “We are exactly the same,” one pair read. A couple of weeks ago, Rivlin visited the Arab town of Kafr Qasim to apologize for the massacre, in 1956, of forty-eight Palestinian workers and children by Israeli border guards....

“I’ve been called a ‘lying little Jew’ by my critics,” Rivlin told the Knesset recently. “ ‘Damn your name, Arab agent,’ ‘Go be President in Gaza,’ ‘disgusting sycophant,’ ‘rotten filth,’ ‘lowest of the low,’ ‘traitor,’ ‘President of Hezbollah.’ These are just a few of the things that have been said to me in the wake of events I’ve attended and speeches I’ve made. I must say that I’ve been horrified by this thuggishness that has permeated the national dialogue.”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/one-state-reality

if this isn't proof for the coming of the messiah... http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/12/suha-arafat-calls-for-recognition-of-israel-no-one-can-doubt-israels-existence-video/

https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1920541_715427630657_6172790476978020386_n.jpg?oh=f2ca7d5b04d40f590b41161054ff1c67&oe=54DB355D

whaaaaat

bahahahahaha

....

curmudgeon, re what we were discussing above:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/a-withering-critique-of-president-obamas-national-security-council/382477/2/

DR: If Obama had any material management or foreign-policy experience prior to coming in to office or if he had the character of our stronger leaders on these issues—notably a more strategic than tactical orientation, more trust in his team, less risk aversion, etc.—she would be better off, as would we all. But his flaws are compounded by a system that lets him pick and empower those around him. So, if he chooses to surround himself with a small team of "true believers" who won't challenge him as all leaders need to be challenged, if he picks campaign staffers that maintain campaign mode, if he over-empowers political advisors at the expense of those with national-security experience, that takes his weaknesses and multiplies them by those of the team around him.

And whatever Susan Rice's many strengths are, she is ill-suited for the job she has. She is not seen as an honest broker. She has big gaps in her international experience and understanding—Asia. She is needlessly combative and has alienated key members of her staff, the cabinet, and overseas leaders. She is also not strategic and is reactive like her boss. So whereas the system does have the capability of offsetting the weaknesses of a president, if he is surrounded by strong advisors to whom he listens and who he empowers to do their jobs, it can also reinforce and exacerbate those weaknesses—as it is doing now.

"Whatever Susan Rice's many strengths are, she is ill-suited for the job she has."
There have been signs of dysfunction in this administration from earlier. Jim Jones was never really given a chance as the president's first national security advisor, being cut out by a small group of former Obama campaign members. The first Afghan review was convoluted. And the memoirs of Panetta, Gates, Clinton, Vali Nasr, and others pointed to other issues, whether with the president, or with exclusion of cabinet members. But matters began to deteriorate last year.

JG: Go into this dysfunction you're talking about in greater depth. Is the “red line” with Syria crisis the moment you thought that the current process was dysfunctional?

DR: Even before the Syria red-line fiasco, there was confusion around how to respond to the overthrow of the Morsi regime in Egypt—marked by poor communications between the State Department and the White House. You also had the fumbled response to the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal that involved lying to and alienating allies; the very weak response to Putin in Crimea that also involved miscommunications between the White House and the State Department; the failure to respond to ISIS when it was clearly emerging as a major threat almost a year ago (remember, it took Fallujah in the beginning of 2014); the self-inflicted wound of touting the Bowe Bergdahl release; and the president's own communications gaffes associated with the process, from his assertion that his guiding principle was "don't do stupid shit" to his assertion that he didn't have a strategy versus ISIS. And, most recently, we have the poorly managed, strategy-less mission against ISIS that is unfocused, inadequate to the challenges, and has already revealed major rifts with the Defense Department's military and civilian leadership.

All administrations make errors. No process is perfect. But here, everything you look for in a high-functioning process—a national security advisor seen as an honest broker among cabinet departments; the full inclusion and empowerment of the cabinet to harness the resources of the administration; the formulation of good policy options for the president; the effective implementation of the choices the president makes; the effective communication of White House positions; the formulation of strategic perspectives (a role really only the White House can do); the effective separation of political and national-security decision-making processes ... good management, good execution, good results—all of that has been missing or disappointing.

good management, good execution, good results—all of that has been missing or disappointing.

lol would love to hear which president's foreign policy team delivered on these counts

like, ever

rothkopf is much less left wing than you, shakes, but he does rate some others:

Jeffrey Goldberg: You're an expert on the organization and purpose of the NSC. Why are most national security advisors—Brent Scowcroft being one obvious exception—perceived to be failures? Susan Rice is in the barrel right now, but she's not the first.

David Rothkopf: I'm not sure I agree with that characterization. While the job is tough and a clear lightning rod for criticism given its importance, proximity to the president, and the number of hot-button issues its occupants must tackle, it really can't be said that most of its occupants can be perceived as failures. Rice's immediate predecessor, Tom Donilon, was certainly not perceived that way—getting a mixed grade, perhaps, but hardly a failing one. His predecessor, Jim Jones, was not seen as a success, but that was largely because he was undercut by a coterie of staffers close to the president and, indirectly, by a president who didn't fully empower him or back him up. Steve Hadley was quite successful, actually, as Bush's national security advisor, helping with the benefit of a largely new team elsewhere in the administration to enable Bush to change course in his last couple of years and finish much stronger than he had started.

Condi Rice oversaw a deeply troubled period in U.S. foreign policy in Bush's first term, but that was largely attributed to the president enabling others in the administration, notably the vice president and the secretary of defense, to gain too much traction and to backdoor the interagency process. Sandy Berger was quite a successful national security advisor in the Clinton second term. Tony Lake, not as successful—he was, like Rice and Jones, an example of a "learning curve" national security advisor, overseeing the process while his boss was getting his sea legs—but he was not seen as a failure. His greatest challenge, in some respects, was that his predecessor, Scowcroft, was seen as the gold standard in the job. You can go back further through history and pick out others who were seen as capable, like Colin Powell or Frank Carlucci, and some who were seen as particularly strong, like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger. So it is a mixed bag.

fucking Kissinger

rmde

otm otm otm

shlomo sand is a lunatic, but he's right about a lot of things and this is a great read:
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.626312?v=026A89510E1121BC919983707F199320

After dropping my daughter off at synagogue daycare this morning I looked up at the Israeli flag and was kind of pondering what the hell I'm going to start telling her in a few years.

Friend posted this this morning:

http://o.canada.com/entertainment/celebrity/jon-stewart-on-criticism-of-his-coverage-of-israel#.VGVGW-bWP1w.twitter

Feel like what he says is pretty close to how I feel. I guess I'm still on some level a "liberal zionist" -- a dirty term now -- but I feel much more Jewish than I do zionist. I don't believe in Israel at all costs. I don't think Israel is essential to a Jewish identity or to the "survival of the Jewish people." I don't even believe in the "survival of the Jewish people" at all costs.

I actually do want to go to synagogue, at least from from time to time, and I want to be able to do it without having to tie the practice to Israel (the modern state as opposed to the biblical concept). That probably means I need to go find some Park Slope lefty reconstructionist temple or something. At Yom Kippur services this year we made it all the way to the end, but then at the memorial service the seemingly lefty, young, openly lesbian rabbi started to get into an impassioned speech about the three teens killed in the West Bank prior to the start of the latest Gaza conflict -- it's not that I mind that she memorialized them, it's that, in context, that's all she had to say about the whole thing. I left. A lot of other people did too, maybe just because they always leave at that part of the service (a lot of people do).

*the Israeli flag flying over the synagoguge I mean

fwiw, no interest in joining this particular synagogue, it just happens to have the best daycare in our area

in some ways, despite the automatic support for israel found in orthodox communities, more religious jews i think get away from some of the israel identification as a primary self-identification. probably bc there is so much other stuff to deal w/ before even getting to the modern state. by contrast i think other denominations feel pressure to put israel front-and-center bc there isn't necessarily much else to take its place (i remember my time in conservative judaism was primarily marked by zionism + holocaust remembrance). i think this is kinda sand's point as well - that there kinda isn't such thing as judaism that isn't jewish praxis, and that Israel is not a substitute for that.

tellingly the AJ conservative temple near my house flies the israeli flag but the chabad synagogue i attend does not

The realization I feel like I've had lately is that it's the idea of Israel that's really central to Judaism, not necessarily the state as it exists today. Israel as a place we left and will return to some day.

Probably more for the Hey Jews thread, but sort of relevant here.

i want some IS currency: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/11/14/why_isis_s_plan_to_launch_a_currency_won_t_work

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/imagecache/860x/isiscoin.png

ISIScoin!!!!!!

ISIS has cool swag. Their flag is kind of dope.

Omg