Tunisia’s New Revolution 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/opinion/tunisias-new-revolution.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

TUNIS — “Islamism is dead!” announced Said Ferjani, a leader of the
progressive wing of Ennahda, Tunisia’s main Islamist party, as we
drank coffee in a hotel cafe here last month. Mr. Ferjani, a former
hard-liner who once plotted a coup against the regime of President
Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, was upbeat as he described the historic
transition his party was about to make.

His wing had combined with the party leadership to push through a raft
of resolutions that would not only rebrand Ennahda but also break with
the tradition of political Islam that began with the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in the late 1920s. According
to Mr. Ferjani, Islamism had been useful under the Ben Ali
dictatorship when “our identity and sense of purpose” was threatened
by an authoritarian state. Now that Ennahda is engaged in open, legal
party politics under a new Constitution, which it helped to write, and
competes for national leadership, the Islamist label had become more a
burden than a benefit.

The party’s co-founder and leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, was more
circumspect when I interviewed him at his home. He shifted uneasily
when I asked him whether he thought Islamism was dead.

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” he commented. But he did reject the
label, saying, “We don’t see any reason to distinguish ourselves from
other Muslims.” Both Mr. Ghannouchi and Mr. Ferjani prefer the term
“Muslim Democrats” — which deliberately draws an analogy with the
Christian Democratic parties of Western Europe — to describe their
new, post-Islamist identity.

In particular, Mr. Ferjani’s explicit commitment to the principles of
freedom and equality makes him perhaps the foremost post-Islamist
political figure in the Sunni Arab world. While he calls himself a
conservative and extols “family values,” Mr. Ferjani says he regards
sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity — including the
transgender issues preoccupying the United States — as private and
personal, and not matters for the state or legal authorities to
prescribe.

Mr. Ferjani also adheres to the neutrality of the state on religious
matters. He equates religious freedom with freedom of conscience, and
believes agnostics and atheists should enjoy the same civil rights as
monotheists.

Again, in our interview, Mr. Ghannouchi was predictably more cautious.
He advocated equality among Muslims of all sects, somewhat more
grudgingly extending it to Christians and Jews, and legalistically
referring to “constitutional protections” for atheists and agnostics.

At last month’s Ennahda Congress, the 1,200 delegates approved most of
the sweeping changes to the party’s platform that the Ferjani faction
and the Ghannouchi leadership had called for. The most important
measure drops the party’s commitment to “dawa,” proselytizing Islamic
values. This makes the party a purely political organization, with no
overt religious mission — a radical break from the Muslim Brotherhood
tradition from which the Ennahda movement sprang.

In Tunisia and across the Arab world, liberals, secularists and
critics of Islamism remain skeptical. On more than one occasion here
in the capital, I witnessed the idea of Ennahda’s new stance evoking
peals of laughter from prominent political opponents. They support
dialogue, cooperation, even coalition partnership with Ennahda, but
this “post-Islamist” declaration they found impossible to take
seriously.

It is true that many of the movement’s leaders have not fully
reconciled with the idea of moving beyond the Muslim Brotherhood
vision. After the 2011 revolution, which helped bring Ennahda to
power, the party seemed determined to cling on at all costs — until a
critical moment in 2013 when the Brotherhood government of President
Mohamed Morsi in Egypt was ousted by a military-backed uprising. After
seeing the downfall of its Egyptian counterpart, Ennahda scrambled to
protect itself by stepping down and agreeing to a series of
compromises.

That experience, combined with a new realism about most Tunisians’
lack of sympathy for an avowedly Islamist government, gave rise to
this project of rebranding. There’s no question that it’s all part of
Ennahda’s long-term plan to return to power.

But the sincerity of its transformation is hardly relevant. Ennahda is
no longer an underground movement or secret society. It is an
aboveboard political party that is vying for power in Tunisia’s
fledgling constitutional, democratic system.

This was always how Islamism was likely to evolve in practice. There
would never be an epiphany in which old-school authoritarian Islamists
were instantly converted in a moment of supreme insight into
democratic social conservatives. It is necessarily a messy, contextual
transition, primarily driven by the search for power in an Arab world
where most people are devoutly Muslim but remain suspicious of the
proponents of political Islam.

What Ennahda’s critics and supporters alike should understand is that
the intentions of its leadership don’t matter — in a democracy, it is
public words and deeds, not secret thoughts, that count. Even if the
rebranding as “Muslim Democrats” is a cynical ploy, the party will
have to follow through to gain power in a Tunisian society that won’t
accept old-style Islamism. Muslim Democrats will be what Ennahda has
to become.

The future of Islamism in Muslim countries everywhere is deeply linked
to the progress of the new-look Ennahda. And its fate is therefore
bound up with the survival of the new Tunisia.

Partly against its own inclinations, Ennahda has become the first
post-Islamist political party in the Arab world. The stakes, for the
region and for the world, in Tunisia’s fragile democratic experiment
have just increased immeasurably.

Is the Arab Peace Initiative Really in Play?

http://www.agsiw.org/is-the-arab-peace-initiative-really-in-play/

The Arab Peace Initiative (API) is receiving a great deal of attention these days, primarily from Israel, but also from Egypt, the Gulf states, and others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said the plan had “positive elements,” after almost 14 years of ignoring or dismissing the proposal. Even more unusually, new Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he agreed with Netanyahu’s positive assessment of the plan. First floated by Saudi Arabia and unanimously adopted by the Arab League in 2002, and reaffirmed in 2007, the initiative basically suggests that the whole Arab world would normalize relations with Israel in the event of a peace agreement with the Palestinians and an end to the occupation of Arab lands seized in 1967. It’s not hard to see what all parties find attractive in refocusing attention on the proposal. But is the API actually and at long last really in play, and could it be the basis of forward movement in the stalled Palestinian-Israeli negotiating process?

The Israeli media almost unanimously sees the Israeli government’s renewed interest in the proposal as a ploy designed to soften the international image of what virtually all observers agree is the most right-wing and reactionary government in the country’s history. The coalition now not only includes Lieberman, but also right-wingers such as Naftali Bennett and several leaders of the settlement movement. The highly negative international reaction to the new coalition, which is seen as unresponsive to the international imperative of reviving peace talks, dovetails with spats between right-wing Israeli political leaders and the country’s military establishment over the conduct of soldiers toward Palestinians especially following the release of a video depicting an Israeli soldier summarily executing a wounded Palestinian assailant. These developments have rocked Israel’s international image, and many Israeli commentators have argued that Netanyahu and Lieberman are attempting to offset that negative impression by giving the appearance of an interest in reviving peace talks.

Several Israeli commentators also have noted that Israel’s government may be attempting to use the API to neutralize European, and especially French, efforts to kick-start a new international initiative on Middle East peace, beginning with a peace conference on June 3 in Paris. Plans for the Paris conference had been postponed at the last minute when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he would not be available to attend, having first agreed to do so, although European states continue to work on advancing their new initiative. Kerry is again scheduled to attend the conference, but is not evincing much enthusiasm for it. Israel does not trust such European efforts, strongly preferring U.S.-brokered mediation, especially because of French talk of rigid timelines for achieving a final status agreement and outcome. Israeli commentator Ben Caspit wrote that “The Europeans are gathering ammunition, the danger is real. [Netanyahu] is bracing for all this with a regional initiative that has cost him only words for now.” According to this analysis, Netanyahu is attempting to play the API off against European moves, paying lip service to the former in order to sabotage the latter.

Moreover, Israel is increasingly concerned with the growth of interest in the “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) movement, which exists in two separate incarnations. While Israeli rhetoric tends to conflate them, they are very different, although both are problematic for Israel. The first iteration of BDS, which is largely rhetorical and exists mainly on U.S. and European college campuses, calls for a broad-based boycott of Israel in general. This agenda has met with very little practical success in Europe and virtually none in the United States because there is almost no institutional support for boycotting Israel as a whole. It has, however, captured a great deal of attention, with a recent survey showing up to one-third of U.S. students having sympathy for BDS. Even more worrying are official European initiatives, which are quickly gaining ground, that seek to distinguish Israel from its settlements in the occupied territories, label or even prohibit Israeli settlement products, and restrict investment in settlement-related economic activities. Such initiatives are growing in Europe in both the public and private sectors, and posing an even more serious problem for Israel than rhetorical BDS because the sanctions are real, pursuant to peace based on international law (which clearly mandates a two-state solution), and impossible for Israel to dismiss as irrationally hostile or “anti-Semitic.”

So there are ample grounds for suspecting that Israel is feigning interest in the API in an effort to soften its international image and mitigate its reputational crisis in the West. However, there are also reasons to suspect that Israel might be more interested in a Middle East-based, API-centered, initiative than mere hasbara (the Hebrew term for propaganda) or to neutralize European proposals it mistrusts. In fact, the API potentially offers Israel the breakthrough it has been seeking since its founding in 1948: a chance to normalize its relations with most, if not all, of the states of the Middle East and to gain acceptance as a legitimate regional entity and player. Moreover, Israel’s potential interest in the API could stem from its evaluation that the actual price of such acceptance by the Arab side has never been, and may never again be, as low as it presently appears.

Key Arab states, notably Egypt and the Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, have also been expressing interest in a revival of the API and reaching out to Israel on that basis. Each has its own clear motivation. The Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, have radically restructured their strategic calculations in recent years. Israel is no longer perceived as the primary threat or destabilizing force in the region. Indeed, it may now be seen as a potential stabilizing force, and even a possible ally, because the main threat is now perceived as coming from Iran. Israel is at least as wary of Iranian intentions and activities as are the Gulf states. There is thus a strong potential basis for greater cooperation between the Gulf states and Israel as they both seek to block any further expansion of Iranian power and influence in the Middle East.

However, deeply entrenched domestic and regional political expectations, established by decades of strong and principled rhetoric about the need for Israel to end the occupation (a position reflected in the API), mean that Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states cannot move closer to Israel without first obtaining some concessions from it. In the past this would have required either an end to the occupation outright, or a clear path to that end. Since the strategic need for cooperation vis-à-vis Iran is perceived as so great, it is now likely that Israel could achieve a significant degree of de facto Arab recognition and legitimation by engaging in peace talks that, in the end, fall short of a guaranteed end to the occupation but do actually produce some substantial progress. Such measures could include: an explicit or implicit understanding about areas in which Israeli settlement activity will not take place, thereby preserving the prospects for an eventual two-state solution; additional understandings on Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, possibly in coordination with Jordan; greater autonomy and authority for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Areas A and B, and possibly even access to Area C, in the occupied West Bank; and other measures promoting Palestinian movement and access, strengthening the PA security forces, and reducing Israel’s incursions intoPalestinian-administered areas.

Such a package of inducements might be sufficient to provide the political cover for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states to move closer to Israel on several axes. It will not, of course, be enough for full normalization or a formal end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But, given the urgency of the strategic challenge posed by Iran to both sides, it could be the basis for much greater coordination. Palestinians are evidently nervous about how far key Arab states like Saudi Arabia might be willing to go without securing an end to the occupation. But they, too, would benefit from such measures, and, presumably, from new aid packages from the Gulf and other inducements designed to win their cooperation with such a process, however grudging it might be. Indeed, faced with the choice of these benefits or nothing, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the PA might find themselves with little choice, particularly if they have reason to believe these developments might strengthen their hand against Hamas (which also strongly opposed the French Paris peace conference), particularly in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

Egypt’s cooperation would be crucial in brokering such a development, and creating the necessary inducements for Palestinians, particularly regarding Gaza. Indeed, it was an initiative by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in mid-May, strongly backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, that raised the potential for a Middle East-based peace initiative centered on the API. Sisi has been calling for the revival of the API since 2014, but his recent efforts have struck a chord with Israeli and Arab power centers. The Egyptian president has many motivations for taking the lead in these efforts. Both in Egypt’s national interest and for domestic political reasons, Sisi needs to reassert Egypt’s regional role, particularly after the highly controversial recent ceding of Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, apparently in exchange for large amounts of aid. Moreover, Egypt’s interest in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is strongly linked to its all-important war against extremist groups in the Sinai Peninsula, and its insistence that Hamas and other radical groups in Gaza are cooperating with the Sinai-based fanatics. Egypt’s long-term goal cannot be endless containment, but rather must involve the eventual restoration of a moderate-nationalistic Palestinian leadership in the Gaza Strip rather than the Hamas Islamists and their allies with which Cairo can deal, but never trust. Egypt is also undoubtedly seeking to further cement its strategic ties with both Saudi Arabia and Israel (with which it has reportedly rarely enjoyed closer military cooperation).

Saudi Arabia, too, is evidently seeking to use the revivification of the API to underscore its regional role and emerging Arab leadership position. This would be greatly strengthened by demonstrating that, in coordination with Cairo and others, Riyadh is able to secure otherwise unattainable cooperation and concessions from Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, even if they fall short of fully ending the occupation. All parties understand that a final status agreement with the Palestinians is almost certainly not achievable under the present ultra-right-wing Israeli government. But there is a potential for reviving some kind of peace process under the rubric of the API, given that almost all parties would significantly benefit from it. France and other European powers might be disappointed if a Middle East-based process replaces their own initiative, but they would almost certainly support such a development given that it springs directly from the parties in the region.

The United States, too, would surely welcome a peace initiative that secures progress between Israel and the Palestinians and that is brokered by its traditional partners in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A strong U.S. role would be indispensable and Washington shouldn’t be skeptical of a Middle East-based process in the same way it seems threatened by the European initiative that could replace the well-established (albeit currently paralyzed) triangular Washington-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A formula that links Arab and Israeli interests in stronger ties, the urgent Palestinian need for improvements on the ground, European interest in renewed negotiations, and Washington’s cooperation in making it all happen could actually result in an unexpected revival of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy that yields some practical progress, although not, almost certainly for the foreseeable future, a fully-realized final status agreement.

What will really determine whether any initiative based on the API can move seriously forward are the intentions of the Israeli government. If, as most Israeli commentators seem convinced, Netanyahu, Lieberman, and others are merely seeking to improve their international image and offset the threat of European peace initiatives and BDS, these proposals will go nowhere. However, if Israel’s leaders understand that they are facing a historic, and possibly unique, opportunity to advance their long-cherished national goal of regional recognition and legitimation at an unprecedentedly low political and diplomatic cost, then a genuine process really could emerge in the near future.

The conundrum is this: Israel’s new ultra-right-wing government is uniquely positioned to sell the necessary (and now relatively modest) concessions required to achieve these goals to the most skeptical constituencies in the country. But it is also the government least likely to be willing to agree to them at all. Key figures in Israel’s national security establishment clearly understand that the country confronts a historic opportunity. Netanyahu and some other key political leaders might – just might – as well. Whether the Israeli government and political system as a whole will be capable of taking advantage of it, or will squander this rare moment, remains to be seen.

Why the US can’t disengage from the Middle East

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/why-the-us-cant-disengage-from-the-middle-east#full

One of the key features of late Obama-era American foreign policy is the dominant mythology that all American – and, by extension, any western – military intervention in the Middle East is doomed to failure. President Obama has said as much, with increasing intensity, in a series of interviews, and it appears to have risen to an article of faith in the White House.

In his recent conversations with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Mr Obama extended this principle to Russia’s intervention in Syria. He spoke of enormous costs and claimed that “the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now in Syria … is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world general. They are overextended. They’re bleeding,” he insists.

Neither the reality nor the assessments of his own officials corroborate Mr Obama’s opinion. Russia seems to have achieved a major effect on the strategic situation on the ground, in favour of itself and its allies, Iran and Bashar Al Assad, at limited cost and without being particularly overextended, let alone bleeding.

Mr Obama, it would seem, simply assumed that this would be the case, without any real evidence. But because it is an article of faith in the present White House that American intervention in the Middle East is doomed to fail catastrophically, it was extrapolated that any Russian intervention in the Middle East, including Syria, would be a similar disaster.

This thinking was perfectly illustrated in David Samuels’s recent New York Times profile of White House communications guru Benjamin Rhodes. In it, Mr Rhodes insists: “I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there.”

This is more belief as faith rather than a well-educated and considered opinion of a real expert on the Middle East. That’s amply illustrated by his follow-up comment: “And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there – nearly a decade in Iraq.” That would only be valid if Syria today were practically the same as Iraq in 2003-2013, a laughable notion.

It’s a perfect example of leaping to conclusions based on the scantest knowledge and understanding, and allowing prejudices and political expediency, rather than well-informed and careful judgments, to dictate conclusions. Indeed, this whole article of faith about Middle East engagement being doomed to failure by definition is an unrealistic and ahistorical assumption based on a limited set of specific and contingent scenarios, primarily in Iraq and to some extent Libya.

For the sake of American foreign policy, and the interests of its regional partners, this myth has to be shattered before the next administration begins to formulate its own policies, lest it too fall victim to this indefensible dogma.

Enter Frederic C Hof, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, formerly Mr Obama’s special adviser for transition in Syria and now one of his most incisive critics. In a piece published last week on the Atlantic Council website titled The Non-Option of Disengagement from the Middle East, Mr Hof quickly and devastatingly puts paid to the preposterous naysaying that has misguided the US administration’s recent approach to the Middle East.

Mr Hof points out that all of the instances cited by supporters of the doomed-to-failure mythology had specific causes and identifiable authors. “None resulted from a flawed consensus of ‘the foreign policy establishment’,” he notes. It is an absolutely crucial point.

“None signified the preordained failure of American military operations,” he explains, since “the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 featured diplomatic and military excellence” and serves as a studiously ignored but crucial counter-example.

The key is accurate assessment, and adequate planning, especially for post-conflict stabilisation, rather than wishful thinking that is either too aggressive or too passive.Mr Hof also rightly identifies “the vital importance to the world economy – and therefore to the American economy – of energy resources passing through the Strait of Hormuz”, the threat of terrorism and numerous other factors reinforcing the strategic centrality of the region.

Moreover, even if the US were to pivot to Asia, as Mr Obama keeps advocating, that would not reduce, but counterintuitively actually increase, the strategic importance of the Middle East. As scholar Kristian Coates Ulrichsen pointed out at a panel I moderated recently at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington: “The Gulf states have, themselves, already pivoted to Asia.”

Given the absolute dependency of Asian economies on the energy resources of the Gulf region, any American pivot to Asia would only reinforce, rather than undermine, the region’s economic, and hence strategic, importance.

As Mr Hof notes, the United States has no “castle, moat and drawbridge”. It will remain deeply engaged in the Middle East, like it or not, as long as it wishes to remain a global power. Therefore, it will have to take action from time to time, and ensure success. Even if the next administration doesn’t assign Mr Hof a senior role in American foreign policy-making – and it certainly should – it at least needs to listen to his simple, clear and wise counsel.

Why the US can’t disengage from the Middle East

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/why-the-us-cant-disengage-from-the-middle-east#full

One of the key features of late Obama-era American foreign policy is the dominant mythology that all American – and, by extension, any western – military intervention in the Middle East is doomed to failure. President Obama has said as much, with increasing intensity, in a series of interviews, and it appears to have risen to an article of faith in the White House.

In his recent conversations with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Mr Obama extended this principle to Russia’s intervention in Syria. He spoke of enormous costs and claimed that “the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now in Syria … is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world general. They are overextended. They’re bleeding,” he insists.

Neither the reality nor the assessments of his own officials corroborate Mr Obama’s opinion. Russia seems to have achieved a major effect on the strategic situation on the ground, in favour of itself and its allies, Iran and Bashar Al Assad, at limited cost and without being particularly overextended, let alone bleeding.

Mr Obama, it would seem, simply assumed that this would be the case, without any real evidence. But because it is an article of faith in the present White House that American intervention in the Middle East is doomed to fail catastrophically, it was extrapolated that any Russian intervention in the Middle East, including Syria, would be a similar disaster.

This thinking was perfectly illustrated in David Samuels’s recent New York Times profile of White House communications guru Benjamin Rhodes. In it, Mr Rhodes insists: “I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there.”

This is more belief as faith rather than a well-educated and considered opinion of a real expert on the Middle East. That’s amply illustrated by his follow-up comment: “And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there – nearly a decade in Iraq.” That would only be valid if Syria today were practically the same as Iraq in 2003-2013, a laughable notion.

It’s a perfect example of leaping to conclusions based on the scantest knowledge and understanding, and allowing prejudices and political expediency, rather than well-informed and careful judgments, to dictate conclusions. Indeed, this whole article of faith about Middle East engagement being doomed to failure by definition is an unrealistic and ahistorical assumption based on a limited set of specific and contingent scenarios, primarily in Iraq and to some extent Libya.

For the sake of American foreign policy, and the interests of its regional partners, this myth has to be shattered before the next administration begins to formulate its own policies, lest it too fall victim to this indefensible dogma.

Enter Frederic C Hof, director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, formerly Mr Obama’s special adviser for transition in Syria and now one of his most incisive critics. In a piece published last week on the Atlantic Council website titled The Non-Option of Disengagement from the Middle East, Mr Hof quickly and devastatingly puts paid to the preposterous naysaying that has misguided the US administration’s recent approach to the Middle East.

Mr Hof points out that all of the instances cited by supporters of the doomed-to-failure mythology had specific causes and identifiable authors. “None resulted from a flawed consensus of ‘the foreign policy establishment’,” he notes. It is an absolutely crucial point.

“None signified the preordained failure of American military operations,” he explains, since “the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 featured diplomatic and military excellence” and serves as a studiously ignored but crucial counter-example.

The key is accurate assessment, and adequate planning, especially for post-conflict stabilisation, rather than wishful thinking that is either too aggressive or too passive.Mr Hof also rightly identifies “the vital importance to the world economy – and therefore to the American economy – of energy resources passing through the Strait of Hormuz”, the threat of terrorism and numerous other factors reinforcing the strategic centrality of the region.

Moreover, even if the US were to pivot to Asia, as Mr Obama keeps advocating, that would not reduce, but counterintuitively actually increase, the strategic importance of the Middle East. As scholar Kristian Coates Ulrichsen pointed out at a panel I moderated recently at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington: “The Gulf states have, themselves, already pivoted to Asia.”

Given the absolute dependency of Asian economies on the energy resources of the Gulf region, any American pivot to Asia would only reinforce, rather than undermine, the region’s economic, and hence strategic, importance.

As Mr Hof notes, the United States has no “castle, moat and drawbridge”. It will remain deeply engaged in the Middle East, like it or not, as long as it wishes to remain a global power. Therefore, it will have to take action from time to time, and ensure success. Even if the next administration doesn’t assign Mr Hof a senior role in American foreign policy-making – and it certainly should – it at least needs to listen to his simple, clear and wise counsel.

Obama’s complex foreign policy legacy unpicked

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/obamas-complex-foreign-policy-legacy-unpicked

The battle to define the policy legacy of any two-term American presidency usually emerges as the election for a successor begins in earnest. Ever the astute campaigner, Barack Obama initiated the current debate through a series of interviews to The Atlantic magazine, published as The Obama Doctrine. The conversation has just been significantly extended by a profile in The New York Times of White House communications guru Ben Rhodes.

Mr Obama was elected with a mandate to correct a Bush-era foreign policy characterised by excessive interventionism, overreach and even hubris. As former Obama CIA director and defence secretary Leon Panetta puts it, he was “the guy who’s going to bring these wars to an end”.

Yet in Samuels’s account, Mr Obama is depicted as single-minded and inflexible in a manner surprisingly reminiscent of George W Bush. Bush-era recklessness has given way to a very different, but also profoundly dangerous, risk aversion.

It’s pointless to debate whether Mr Obama’s sins of omission have been as harmful as Mr Bush’s sins of commission. That’s totally subjective and can only be based on counterfactual scenarios. Moreover, it’s irrelevant, because even if Mr Obama’s worst errors prove less costly than the flabbergasting blunder of the Iraq war, they’re still highly damaging failures.

Mr Bush’s exit was haunted by the spectre of Iraq, which helped bring his Republican party crashing down to a historic defeat in 2008. Although its political fallout will be less dramatic, Mr Obama’s failure to act in Syria eventually may similarly define his foreign policy in largely negative terms.

Mr Obama is counting on the Iran nuclear deal to secure a historical legacy of at least relative success. But if the agreement doesn’t prevent the emergence of either a nuclear-armed Iran or a military confrontation, he will have lost the legacy gamble.

And a Syria policy that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions, one of the worst terrorist organisations in history empowered, and parts of the Middle East and even Europe destabilised, will be hard to frame as anything other than a devastating moral and political failure.

Samuels’s article illustrates the monomaniacal groupthink dominating elements in the present White House: “Iraq is his [Mr Rhodes’] one-word answer to any and all criticism.”

Moreover, he presents Mr Rhodes, and by implication Mr Obama, as being fatalistically convinced – largely, and perhaps entirely, based on the American experience in Iraq – that there was nothing at all Washington could have done to improve the situation in Syria.

“I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there,” Samuels quotes Mr Rhodes. “And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we’re there – nearly a decade in Iraq.”

This echoes Mr Obama’s evidence-free assertions that Russia’s intervention in Syria is, by definition, a crippling failure and sign of weakness.

But of course, Syria isn’t Iraq. 2003 isn’t 2012. And these two realities are radically different in almost every respect. Only the most superficial and confused reading would conflate the challenges they posed to policymakers.

This is precisely the kind of amateurish error that would seem entirely convincing, and profoundly appeal, to those who just don’t know much about Iraq and Syria. Yet this excruciatingly facile analogy appears to have been definitive for the Obama administration.

An unnamed former senior Obama administration official told Samuels he thought the debate in 2012 about Syria was “honest and open” but has changed his mind. He says that, like Mr Bush, Mr Obama sticks with his existing beliefs no matter what the realities or “costs to our strategic interests” prove to be. Samuels insightfully notes both men “projected their own ideas of the good on to an indifferent world”.

Mr Panetta says he used to believe Mr Obama was prepared to act militarily to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, but now thinks that’s “probably not” true. Instead, he suggests that Mr Obama is so attached to the idea of ending wars that he wouldn’t have actually launched such an action, or even authorised increased sanctions on Tehran (which Mr Obama did oppose).

He adds that this mentality also helps explain American reticence on Syria. He explains Mr Obama’s calculations thus: “If you ratchet up sanctions, it could cause a war. If you start opposing their interest in Syria, well, that could start a war, too.”

Samuels’s article confirms some of the worst fears about how foreign policy is sometimes being poorly manufactured and cynically marketed by the current administration.

Mr Obama has correctly chided Donald Trump that the presidency is “not a reality show”. Yet Mr Rhodes boasts about having “created an echo chamber”. Unfortunately, behind such Machiavellian messaging lies not reassuringly sincere policy confidence, but a disturbingly absolutist certainty.

Ideologically-driven dogmatism isn’t restricted to past administrations. And no need of Trumpery – serious issues are already being addressed through openly contemptuous, reality TV-style manipulation rather than genuine persuasion. These attitudes and practices may, alas, prove inseparable from the rest of the Obama foreign policy legacy.

Clinton and Trump’s Mideast Policy Report Cards

The American presidential election will almost certainly be between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and real estate mogul Donald Trump. This unprecedented contest – a real-life “wacky race” – invites a thought experiment: compare and contrast Middle East policy report cards for these would-be national leaders.

The manifest purpose of this academic fantasy is to gauge what the election might mean for the Middle East. But a latent aim is to test whether Mr Trump – who has never held any elected or appointed office – can be taken at all seriously.

So let’s temporarily put aside Mr Trump’s hate-speech, conspiracy theories, proposed entry bans on Muslim non-citizens and other provocations, and juxtapose his policy pronouncements with those of Mrs Clinton.

Start with Iran. Mr Trump vows to “renegotiate” the “terrible” nuclear agreement. But he doesn’t specify what, precisely, is so “terrible” or must be renegotiated. And yet he’s enraged that continued sanctions impede American investment in Iran.

This glaring incongruity reflects Mr Trump’s “lather, rinse and repeat” strategy. He blurts out whatever comes to mind, notes the public response, and repeats whatever resonates. “First thought, best thought” rarely had a more consistent practitioner.

Mrs Clinton was reportedly sceptical when negotiations began, and remains distrustful of Tehran. Her supporters argue this positions her perfectly to “rally the world to deter and punish Iran” if need be.

After leaving the state department, Mrs Clinton supported new sanctions. Barack Obama did not. He prevailed, and his defenders say that was crucial to reaching the agreement. Her supporters suggest additional pressure would have produced a stronger agreement.

Both Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump pledge strong support for Israel, although he wants to be a “neutral guy” in negotiations. As first lady in 1998, Hillary Clinton pioneered White House backing for Palestinian statehood. Both advocate a two-state solution, but neither propose measures to advance it.

Mr Trump echoes both Mr Obama’s “free riders” accusation against Gulf states, and the view that the Middle East has become less strategically significant. He angrily threatened to halt oil purchases from Saudi Arabia unless it contributes troops (or vast sums) to battle ISIL, apparently unaware that Riyadh has repeatedly pressed Washington to lead just such an offensive and offered significant ground forces.

Mrs Clinton embraces a more traditional American approach, insisting the Gulf region remains of “vital importance”. “Bolstering security cooperation” with GCC states is among her five key Middle East “policy pillars”. And she appears tougher on Iran and less sceptical of Washington’s Arab partners.

Mrs Clinton joins a virtual consensus of former Obama administration officials now publicly critical of the lack of US engagement in Syria. She regrets the US did not engage sufficiently with Syrian rebels, and implies she would correct this.

Mrs Clinton shares Mr Obama’s opposition to deploying American troops in Syria, whether against ISIL or the regime. Nonetheless, she has called for both “safe zones”, and more militarily ambitious and strategically significant “no-fly zones”. Moreover, she insists on removing Bashar Al Assad, which Mr Obama has been downplaying.

Mr Trump supports establishing refugee “safe zones”, as long as they are financed by Gulf states, but dismisses “no fly zones”. His insistence the region would be better off with Muammar Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein still in power was clearly intended to imply his support for continued Assad rule.

Mr Trump advocated deploying 30,000 American troops against ISIL in Syria, though he later denied he meant it. He has consistently advocated systematic torture, deliberate killing of family members, and possible use of nuclear weapons against ISIL.

Apart from combating ISIL, Mr Trump casts the Middle East as “one big fat quagmire” to be avoided whenever possible. But, in almost the same breath, he demands that ISIL-controlled Syrian and Iraqi oilfields be (somehow) seized, rebuilt by American oil companies, and then kept entirely for the United States.

If Mr Trump’s Middle East positions seem increasingly ridiculous, that’s because the more closely they are examined, the more clearly they reveal their absurdity. To itemise them is to sink inexorably into a morass of boundless incoherence, endless self-contradiction, wilful ignorance and empty bluster.

Mrs Clinton’s Middle East policies may seem unimaginative and underwhelming; they’re certainly predictable and politically safe. But they’re also neat and tidy, the dutifully-done homework of a would-be teacher’s pet. Her grade thus far is probably a “C, must try harder”.

Mr Trump’s policies resemble the latest crayon masterpiece of a disruptive class clown and playground bully. His grade can only be an “F, with urgent referral to remedial classes and special needs counselling”.

If Middle East policy is any indication, the American election will pit an orthodox, though often uninspiring, politico – who, apart from her gender, seems straight out of central casting for the role of president – against a truly bizarre figure, more like a cartoon character than an actual candidate.

But the real “report card zero” must go to those Republican leaders who – against their better judgment and merely to preserve their personal power – are about to try to turn this walking caricature of a politician into the president of the United States.

Four Probable Developments in U.S. Middle East Policy

 

U.S. foreign policy has historically favored consistency and gradual change, as befits a status quo power, rather than sudden transformations. Unanticipated events like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 that force dramatic policy shifts have been the exceptions rather than the rule. U.S. interests develop slowly over time and reflect the imperatives of numerous constituencies that compete in defining national priorities. A change in administrations does not return the country to square one. Therefore, whoever succeeds President Barack Obama is likely to have an overall approach to the Middle East that is similar to his. This is particularly true on broad consensus issues, such as the determination to avoid unnecessary military engagements, particularly in the Middle East, or the need for greater “burden sharing” by European, Arab, and other international partners.

However, because the political context is ever changing, and since any new administration must try to learn from the experiences of its predecessors, some modifications can be expected. At least four probable Middle East policy shifts that the next administration, from either party, is likely to adopt – campaign rhetoric notwithstanding – are already identifiable. These include a reevaluation of relations with Iran, intensified efforts to reassure traditional Gulf Arab allies, a more engaged policy on Syria and, eventually, a return to the vexed Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Re-evaluating Relations with Iran

While most Americans appear to support the nuclear agreement with Iran, a major achievement for U.S. diplomacy, the next administration will most likely re-evaluate relations with Tehran. This is likely to be true even of a potential Hillary Clinton administration, even though the nuclear agreement is especially popular with Democrats. It is unlikely that any future White House will be as deeply invested in the agreement as the Obama administration, and relations with Iran will continue to reflectincreasing tensions that are already developing.

The Obama administration overcame an extraordinary set of difficulties to achieve an agreement with Iran that, if implemented, will prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons for at least 10 to 15 years. Especially during his second term, Obama prioritized negotiating and then implementing the nuclear deal. Indeed, protecting the negotiations with Tehran appears to have influenced some other Middle East policies. The controversial 2013 Syrian chemical weapons “red line” volte-face is a striking case-in-point.

The next president is likely to be even firmer than Obama in insisting on strict implementation of the agreement, and take a tougher line on Tehran’s provocative behavior. Iran has intensified its destabilizing efforts to expand its influence in the Arab world largely through armed proxies. Iran has also expanded its ballistic missile development and testing program, which violates U.N. Security Council resolutions, international expectations, and the spirit, if not the letter, of the nuclear agreement itself.

The Obama administration has been increasingly responding to this pattern, using tougher language denouncing Iran’s behavior (such as direct references to “support for terrorist groups”), and moving closer to Washington’s traditional Arab partners. The next administration can be expected to intensify the process of rebuilding trust with the Gulf states. This would be greatly facilitated by Washington taking a tougher line with Iran, thereby clarifying U.S. intentions in the eyes of its Gulf partners.

Rebuilding Trust with GCC States

During the Obama administration, Washington’s relations with its Gulf Arab partners developed a radical dichotomy between perceptions and realities. The core reality remains one of a strong U.S. engagement in, and commitment to, the Gulf region and its stability and security. The U.S. military presence in the region is at historically high levels, given that the United States is not engaged in a major war, particularly higher than pre-9/11 engagement. Weapons sales, U.S. investment, and diplomatic engagement are all strong. So, during the Obama era the United States actually grew closer than ever to the Gulf states at many quantifiable, brass-tacks levels.

Yet the perception of U.S. disengagement from the region, and disregard for the interests and security of its regional partners, has nonetheless become widespread in Gulf societies. The breakdown of trust grew out of serious concerns about several U.S. policies, particularly the nuclear negotiations with Iran and Washington’s hands-off approach to the Syrian war. These anxieties were exacerbated by some of Obama’s comments in interviews, particularly one with Jeffrey Goldberg, and the combination has led to deep-seated doubts about U.S. intentions.

Obama’s summit meetings with Gulf leaders at Camp David in 2015 and Saudi Arabia in 2016 were useful but did not fully resolve suspicions. The next administration could be well-positioned to go much further in restoring frayed trust, particularly if the incoming president moves into the White House without carrying similar rhetorical baggage. The continued strategic significance of the Middle East, and the Gulf region in particular, to the United States as a major global power ensures that, unless it adopts the neo-isolationist foreign policy, the next administration will intensify efforts to rebuild the U.S. partnership with the Gulf states.

Under the next administration, particularly if it lasts for two terms, the United States and the Gulf states can more fully adjust to the “new normal” in their relationship. Although the partnership remains strong, both parties have adopted some new policy priorities that have restructured it somewhat. Americans feel overburdened by international commitments, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, and will continue to resist military engagements and ask their partners to do more. The Gulf states have become more proactive and independent in their security posture. For Washington, this is a double-edged sword, as the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen demonstrates. It reflects the very self-reliance Washington has long advocated. But the political fallout and the humanitarian consequences of this intervention have produced considerable American unease.

The Gulf states must adjust to a new U.S. approach in which the United States continues its leadership role but with some modifications, and Washington must adjust to a new degree of independent decision making by its Gulf Cooperation Council partners. The resulting relationship could be healthier, and therefore more resilient, than the traditional arrangement. Since this transformation is unavoidable and already underway, one of the key tasks of the next administration will be managing this period of transition. This will require significant attention to bolstering the trust needed to sustain U.S.-GCC relations.

A New U.S. Policy on Syria (and ISIL)

Another likely policy development that may, at least partly, reassure Gulf states is a new U.S. policy toward Syria. However, it is unlikely that Washington and the Gulf states will develop a fully coordinated policy on Syria because their priorities diverge. But the lack of U.S. engagement on Syria has been so damaging to U.S. interests and credibility in the region that some significant change is unavoidable, particularly given the virtual consensus of former Obama administration officials who have been publicly critical of U.S. policy. However, most U.S. citizens are against a major deployment of U.S. ground forces, with the exception of some calls for the use of U.S. troops against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). So the bedrock of the Obama approach – avoiding a major U.S. ground intervention – will almost certainly continue, barring unforeseen circumstances such as a major attack on U.S. interests by one of the armed factions in Syria.

Syria policy is, in effect, inseparable from ISIL policy, since the extremist group has its headquarters, strategic depth, and largest concentration of military power in that country. The Obama administration has pursued an “Iraq-first” approach and, therefore, a de facto containment policy against ISIL in Syria. The incoming administration will have to seriously consider a greater integration of ISIL policy. It could also face strong pressure to intensify efforts should there be additional ISIL-related terrorist attacks in the West, and especially the United States.

The Obama administration deliberately declined to adopt a comprehensive policy on Syria during most of the conflict because it deemed all achievable outcomes to be unacceptable and all minimally acceptable outcomes to be unachievable. However, given the widespread view that this approach has not served broader U.S. policy goals, the next administration will assuredly have to adopt a Syria policy that identifies a preferred plausible outcome and works toward its realization. However, because its specifics will depend on, and be shaped by, many variables, what that will look like in practice is impossible to outline in any detail at this stage.

Re-engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Reviewing the experiences of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the next White House is unlikely to be enthusiastic about re-engaging with Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. But it may not have the luxury of inaction, particularly if another massive spasm of violence in the occupied West Bank threatens the continued existence and political viability of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority, the main institutions of secular Palestinian nationalism.

The West Bank has remained relatively calm, despite the growing frustration, and even desperation, of the Palestinians living under occupation, because most of them are opposed to widespread violence. Memories of the disastrous second intifada, from which Palestinian society has not yet fully recovered, and a long history of previous armed confrontations with Israel have left a strong impression that violence is a losing proposition for Palestinians. However, the recent wave of spontaneous knife attacks against Jewish Israelis by Palestinian youths suggests that a new generation without these memories is coming into its own. With no political horizon for liberation, the open-ended rule of a hostile foreign army, an unelected and unaccountable Palestinian Authority government with little credibility (and Hamas even more discredited and unpopular), and an increasingly grim economic outlook, another bout of sustained and major violence in the West Bank is extremely likely.

The United States, Israel, and some Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, and perhaps the Gulf states, would have a powerful interest in acting quickly to prevent secular Palestinian nationalism from irrevocably disintegrating – especially as it could be replaced with a radical, or religiously extremist, agenda, or total anarchy amid a social and political vacuum among Palestinians. Such an explosion would require the United States, no matter how reluctantly or who is in the White House, to seriously re-engage with Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.

The Obama administration may outline a U.S. position on the appropriate final status outcome between Israel and the Palestinians. These potential “Obama parameters,” however, are likely to be basically an updated version of the familiar “Clinton parameters.” The next administration will undoubtedly build on this legacy when it comes to the long-term outcome for ending the conflict. The goal of the revived U.S. engagement, however, may be more oriented toward preserving the viability of Palestinian nationalism rather than a full-fledged peace. Therefore, the emphasis may be more on measures designed to bolster Palestinian political leadership, society, and capabilities rather than securing a final status agreement with Israel.

Strengthening Palestinian institutions necessitates some concessions from Israel, and restrictions on its occupation activities. But it could focus more on enhancing bilateral U.S.-Palestinian ties, building the Palestinian economy and other institutions, and much more purposeful, focused U.S. and international efforts at preparing the groundwork for the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. It will be difficult to make much progress on this track without significant cooperation from Israel, but there may be no alternative for Israel and the United States if the Palestinian national movement, as it has existed since the early 1960s, appears to be on the brink of permanent dissolution. And there is no power other than the United States that is capable of even potentially helping Israel recognize its stake in preserving the prospects for a two-state solution.

Conclusion

These four anticipated changes to the U.S. posture in the Middle East are very different propositions, although some are closely related in important respects. For example, taking a tougher line with Tehran in the next few years is one of the ways that the imperative of rebuilding trust with the Gulf Arab states will be achieved. That said, and campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, no one will be cancelling or arbitrarily renegotiating the nuclear agreement if both sides continue to meet their fundamental commitments.

By contrast, with regard to Syria the most that can be said with relative certainty is that the United States will be adopting a more integrated and less piecemeal approach that moves away from policy fragmentation and ceding the field almost totally to others. An Israeli-Palestinian re-engagement is the biggest outlier of the four issues, because it will not reflect a planned or deliberate policy shift. Instead, it is an overwhelmingly likely contingency that will probably look and feel much like an emergency, requiring both a re-engagement and a new approach from Washington.

Within the broad framework of U.S. policy continuity, changes are always at work, especially when a new administration takes office. However, these four Middle East policy challenges will almost certainly be dealt with differently by the next administration than they have been under “the Obama doctrine.”

A Looming Crisis in Lebanon

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/a-looming-crisis-in-lebanon.html?_r=0

In Levantine landscapes, history is piled high. The present is layered on the remnants of the past, both modern and ancient.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Sparkling buildings and sweeping urban highways rise up out of heaps of rubble that remain a quarter-century after the 1975-1990 civil war. Yet the crumbling edifices of earlier eras are also, amazingly, still inhabited.

Beirut is an organic museum, vibrant and wretched. Pain and hope coexist on its overflowing, labyrinthine streets, and on sinuous coastal roads, shameless wealth lies alongside desperate poverty. A struggling middle class is caught in between. But neither rich nor poor can escape the stench from mounds of uncollected refuse, the evidence of the country’s infamous “trash crisis.”

Metaphors involving unwanted detritus have been irresistible to commentators as Lebanon again finds itself in the crossfire of geopolitical conflict. The regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has found a new focal point in Lebanon with its uneasy equilibrium.

At the center of the crisis is the growing role of Hezbollah, the Shiite political party and militia. Beyond its Lebanese strongholds, the group has also become one of Iran’s main strategic assets in the region: Heavily supported by Hezbollah fighters, the Russian-Iranian surge in Syria has swung the momentum of the war back in favor of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Lebanon’s own political dynamics have also shifted. Beirut has long been trapped in a Syrian orbit; as the fortunes of the Assad regime have revived, Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon has grown. Hezbollah had already angered the Saudis and their Gulf allies by its intervention in Syria and support for Iran. The Shiite group has also stalemated domestic politics by blocking the selection of a new Lebanese president.

In January, the Gulf states were deeply affronted when Lebanon declined to support an otherwise unanimous (including even Iraq) Arab League condemnation of a mob attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after the execution of a dissident Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia. This snub from Beirut convinced them that thanks to Hezbollah’s rise, Lebanon was now in Tehran’s pocket. Warnings to the Gulf states’ Lebanese allies that Hezbollah’s influence needed curbing seemed to go unheeded; in practice, though, those factions have little alternative but to deal with Hezbollah as usual.

Worse, from the Saudi perspective, Hezbollah has started operating not just beyond Lebanon but in the kingdom’s back yard. The Saudis see Hezbollah’s hand, as well as Tehran’s, behind the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This caps a history of accusations of Hezbollah subversion in the Gulf.

Yemen was the last straw for Riyadh, which axed $4 billion in support for Lebanon’s military and intelligence services. The Gulf states also declared Hezbollah a terrorist group and outlawed support for it.

Punitive expulsions of Lebanese expatriates from the Gulf, which is suffering its own economic problems from the collapse in oil prices, have left Lebanon reeling from the loss of remittances. Travel warningsfrom the Gulf governments have also damaged Lebanon’s tourism industry.

Other sectors of the Lebanese economy long supported by Gulf financing, like media outlets, have been hard-hit, too. The financial crisis is palpable and widespread, so that the stinking piles of garbage and wandering bands of desperate Syrian refugees in Beirut may be harbingers of a deeper malady.

The drying up of Gulf funds now threatens the foreign exchange flows on which Lebanon’s banks depend. The remaining reserves are rapidly depleting, which in turn imperils another backbone of the national economy, Lebanon’s financial services industry.

The Gulf states’ cutting off aid to their Lebanese allies — an incongruous grouping of Sunni, Druze and Christian factions whose only common ground is a shared fear of Hezbollah — undoubtedly cedes the field to Iran. But as a senior Gulf diplomat told me, “Our money in Lebanon just didn’t stretch as far as Iran’s.” It did not have the same political impact because most Gulf aid went to national institutions like the army, while Iran’s mainly goes directly to a proxy militia: Hezbollah. With the growing power of Hezbollah, the Gulf states felt that, by underwriting Lebanon’s national institutions, they were subsidizing what were becoming, in effect, Iranian assets.

The key to Lebanon’s relative stability, as the veteran Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told me, is that “its security services are able to work with the Syrians, the Saudis, the Iranians and the West simultaneously.” If that balance is lost, Lebanon’s fragile equilibrium may collapse.

Worse, with proxy conflicts raging in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, Lebanon, too, is a potential battleground for indirect Iranian-Saudi hostilities. So far, the country’s competing factions have united to quarantine the spillover of the Syrian war to a remote part of northern Lebanon. But should Tehran or Riyadh authorize a new theater of confrontation, Lebanon is a potential powder keg.

The Gulf states have made their point. But unless they resume their engagement with Lebanon, then, as the Obama administration has warned, Tehran’s control can only grow.

The international community must shore up Lebanon’s economy and help it cope with the staggering Syrian refugee crisis. Washington should use its ties to Riyadh and newfound leverage with Tehran to persuade both that stability in Lebanon is in their interest: All have a stake in stopping the Syrian conflict from expanding into Lebanon and preventing the Islamic State from radicalizing local Sunnis. As a first step, they should ensure Lebanon at last gets a new president.

The country is poised, in a way familiar to the Lebanese, between tense calm and a potential conflagration. But the pressures are rapidly mounting, and outside actors will have a decisive role in determining whether the country can avoid being sucked into the inferno raging around it.

US Republicans face a series of grim decisions

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/us-republicans-face-a-series-of-grim-decisions

Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential nominee. Last Tuesday he swept five primaries. Neither of his opponents can amass enough delegates to win without backroom chicanery. And he has finally reached the 50 per cent mark in national polls of likely Republican voters.

Mr Trump is closer to outright victory than most realise. Conventional wisdom holds that a Republican candidate needs 1,237 delegates, a mathematical majority, to win. But GOP party rules expert J Randolph Evans argues the real number is 80, not 100, per cent of the majority, which comes to about 1,100 delegates.

Mr Evans predicts a stampede of uncommitted delegates to any candidate who reaches the 80 per cent threshold since party “insiders want to remain insiders and the bandwagon effect always takes over”.

Mr Trump now has 996 delegates, and his main rival, Ted Cruz, a mere 565. He will easily secure the additional 104 required by Mr Evans’s persuasive analysis.

Republican leaders have therefore begun to reconcile themselves to the reality that Mr Trump will be their nominee – although they’re adopting a range of conclusions and responses.

The party establishment has been compelled to evaluate the political consequences of a concerted effort to deny Mr Trump the nomination if he can be prevented from securing 1,237 delegates. Many key insiders now feel that, disastrous though a Trump nomination will almost certainly be, a behind-the-scenes plot to unseat him if he falls just short of the magic number could be even more damaging, and possibly fatal, to the party.

The forthcoming Trump nomination is without doubt extraordinarily dangerous and perhaps catastrophic for Republican power at the national level.

His negative ratings are so high and his personality so toxic beyond his passionate, but distinctly minority, bloc of supporters that his leadership could undo Republican majorities in the Senate and even the House of Representatives, in a replay of the traumatic GOP rout of 2008.

Such a debacle is plausible only if Mr Trump becomes, in the eyes of most other Americans, an exceptionally repulsive face of the Republican Party.

Much of the GOP establishment has concluded that the party faces a grim binary. It can go down to a devastating defeat with Mr Trump, but live to fight another day. Or its leaders could try to stop him and provoke such outrage and incredulity from the Republican rank and file that the resulting backlash might actually destroy the party.

Therefore, many now think the safer course is, counterintuitively, to allow the Trump campaign to drag the party to a probable crushing defeat rather than try to nullify his primary victories. Hence insider efforts to bring down Mr Trump have been largely abandoned. The potential price is simply deemed too high.

But Republican leaders know their base has selected probably the worst, in every sense of the term, presidential nominee in modern American history. Mr Trump’s unprecedented and complete lack of political experience, evident policy ignorance, bigotry, misogyny, violent rhetoric, conspiracy theories, crude bluster and unmistakable narcissistic personality disorder make him distasteful beyond his base.

The percentage of Americans who view him unfavourably, which most polls measure in the upper 60s, is unheard of for a major candidate. Worse, his unpopularity rating has actually been steadily increasing. To be competitive in a general election, Mr Trump would have to radically transform his image. But he’s so well known and set in his ways that this seems implausible.

Many significant constituencies – including women, Latinos, African-Americans, Arab and Muslim Americans, and even many neoconservatives – will not only oppose Mr Trump, but also be energised by the threat he poses.

Hillary Clinton is, historically, an exceptionally unpopular candidate with “unfavourables” in the low 50s.

Yet most polls show her trouncing Mr Trump by 7 to 10 per cent. Undoubtedly many Republicans will reluctantly vote for her. Almost all Republican candidates in competitive elections have ostentatiously distanced themselves from Mr Trump. And he has received only a handful of endorsements from Republicans in Congress, while numerous party bigwigs have denounced him as a dangerous charlatan.

But the party base has overruled them, and the establishment now faces a set of unpalatable choices.

Three factions are already emerging.

The largest group will grit their teeth and support Mr Trump out of party loyalty, distaste for Democrats and, most of all, in hopes of power and patronage. New Jersey governor Chris Christie pioneered this latest incarnation of the world’s oldest profession.

The second will do as little as possible, try to stay home, keep a low profile, and go through pro forma motions.

The third, and unfortunately probably much the smallest, emerging Republican establishment faction will be those who have the self-respect, patriotism and common decency to openly oppose Mr Trump and what he stands for.

Only those principled Republican leaders who reject Trumpery – as it should certainly be called – will emerge with their reputations intact. It is they who will have to rebuild and repair the Republican Party once the Trump fiasco has, as it must and surely will, becomes a bizarre, though disturbing, historical footnote.

In truth, the US hasn’t given up on the Gulf

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/in-truth-the-us-hasnt-given-up-on-the-gulf

Marshall McLuhan’s famous observation that sometimes “the medium is the message” perfectly describes the substance of last week’s US-GCC summit. The meeting itself, especially its now-confirmed annual status, is the biggest takeaway for both sides.

For the United States, an annual leadership summit is one of the main things it could do to reaffirm its partnership with the Gulf states. After all, the American military presence in the region, especially given the absence of a major combat mission, is already historically high, as are weapon sales, financial investments, diplomatic interchange and civil society interaction.

Despite the impression in Gulf societies that the United States has been disengaging, the reality is that, at a practical level, there’s not that much more that could be done to increase US engagement.

What the United States had left to offer that is politically possible is what Barack Obama referred to as “institutionalised communication” with the Gulf states. The annual summits give the Gulf states very unusual regular access to American decision-making at the highest possible level. It’s a format rather than a substantial takeaway, but that doesn’t lessen its practical and symbolic value.

The institutionalisation of an annual US-GCC Summit confirms the strength of the partnership and the extent to which, no matter what the doubts and tensions on both sides might be, the two sides still need each other because they lack alternatives.

They came together out of mutual interests, not shared values or love. And they are sticking together because those interests remain substantially unchanged. Both sides have plainly been considering their options in recent years, but, in reality, there are no alternatives to each other given what Arab and American interests really are.

Mr Obama, predictably, did a creditable job in downplaying tensions in the relationship, dismissing them as “tactical differences” for achieving common strategic goals. To some extent that’s true, on issues such as Iran and Syria in particular, but some of his personal opinions remain problematic.

When Mr Obama speaks, as he did during the summit, as president, his words reflect US policy and are therefore almost entirely unobjectionable because US policy is sound. However, as is well known, some of his personal views have created great anxiety among US Gulf partners.

However, Mr Obama’s personal opinions, such as the ideas that the Gulf Arab states are “free riders” in the relationship, or that they should “share” the Middle East with Iran, or that the United States should “pivot to Asia”, are precisely that: his private views. They are not American policy.

No one’s opinions are more important than those of the US president in shaping American policy. But the American president is not a king or a dictator, and US policy is made gradually and with many inputs. Almost none of Mr Obama’s problematic opinions are reflected in either American conduct or policy documents.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Obama who showed up in Saudi Arabia comes across as a very different person from the one depicted in Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent article The Obama Doctrine. The first was the US president, representing the country’s policies and interests. The second was an individual with personal and often idiosyncratic views.

The private man says the partnership with Saudi Arabia is complicated. The American president says: “the strain was overblown” and “friendship and cooperation has been consistent for decades”.

Mr. Obama’s former Middle East coordinator, Philip Gordon, confirmed this dichotomy in a recent interview, saying: “Whatever the president might think of Saudi Arabia … personally, he is following a decades-old policy of pursuing strong relations in the Gulf region” because there are no “good alternatives to our partnership”.

Sometimes the roles merge, as when Mr Obama insisted that “we are not naive” about Iran. There is no doubt he specifically denied this accusation because he had been hearing it from his Arab interlocutors from the moment he landed, if not before.

Here all three of Mr Obama’s personas meld seamlessly: the individual person he always is, the American president in which capacity he temporarily acts, and the American policy for which he speaks, are all, he insists, not naive about Iran.

Continued American sanctions against Iran are annoying both Iranians and Europeans hoping to invest in that country, but are primarily harming US businesses. The United States is literally paying a significant price for continued vigilance against Tehran. Given these sanctions, and the sustained efforts to repair relations with Gulf partners, the rejection of charges of naivety need to be taken seriously.

American policy, including the nuclear deal, isn’t naie about Iran. The American president hasn’t adopted naive positions on Iran. And even if Mr Obama has personally expressed what could be described as some naive opinions about the Middle East, that’s not really as big a deal as some think.

The reality is the United States is still plainly at odds with Iran and, despite claims to the contrary, still has a strong partnership with the Gulf Arab states. That’s the message embedded in the medium of the annual US-GCC summits.