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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - November 13, 2006

Q. How is the Gates/Rumsfeld switch at the Pentagon likely to affect Israel, and how might the prospective changes factor into today's Bush-Olmert meeting at the White House? What about the Lebanese governmental crisis?

Q. How is the Gates/Rumsfeld switch at the Pentagon likely to affect Israel, and how might the prospective changes factor into today's Bush-Olmert meeting at the White House?

A. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert's visit, following so shortly upon the Democratic victory in midterm elections, may be too early to discuss new administration policy departures. Olmert himself cautioned while en route to Washington that he did not expect any major new developments in US-Israel relations. Still, American policy decisions regarding the Middle East are in the air, and it is interesting to consider how they might affect relations with Israel.

Based on Gates' close association with James Baker and the anticipated Baker-Hamilton report, together with articles written by Gates in recent years, it appears that his appointment signals the prospect of two new departures in American foreign policy in the Middle East. First, the United States could conceivably now initiate direct talks with Iran and Syria, without preconditions. Second, the US will begin looking for ways to remove its forces from Iraq.

If indeed these are likely near-term developments, Olmert would have a number of concerns to discuss with President Bush. US-Syria talks would presumably focus on Iraq, Lebanon and terrorism, but in this broader regional context they might also bespeak an American initiative to get Israel and Syria together, in response to repeated invitations from Syrian President Bashar Asad. Olmert has shown little enthusiasm for such a prospect, although until now this pose may at least partly have reflected American pressure; a number of prominent Israeli security thinkers as well as, reportedly, IDF intelligence have recommended an Israeli-Syrian dialogue. If Olmert were reassured that reactivating Syrian-Israeli negotiations would preclude American pressures on Israel regarding problematic concessions to the Palestinians, this might help persuade him. One added impetus for engaging Syria that did not exist in previous rounds of negotiations during the 1990s is the desire to remove Damascus from the Iranian sphere of influence and to neutralize its troublesome interference in Iraq and Lebanon.

The impending prospect of US-Iran talks is already seen in Israel as a softening of the American position regarding ways to deal with Iran's nuclear project. This causes Olmert concern, and might explain his relatively bellicose statements about Iran to the media on the eve of his US visit--in effect, challenging Bush not to back off from pressuring Iran and from an eventual military option for the sake of negotiations with Tehran.

The prospect of an American withdrawal from Iraq potentially poses different but related dilemmas for Israel. The assumption in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is that, even after removal of American occupation forces, the four American Air Force bases developed in Iraq in the past three years would remain, thereby helping maintain a certain degree of deterrence vis-a-vis Iran.

But what of the Baghdad regime after the US departs? If the objective is to let Iraqi democracy (and anarchy) continue to take their course, then most or all of Iraq (except Kurdistan and possibly the Sunni triangle) will be Shi'ite and pro-Iranian, and will border on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, both of which have problematic Shi'ite minorities. In parallel, Anbar province would likely remain a Sunni jihadi and/or Baathist stronghold, bordering on Jordan and Syria. Israel would find this threatening, particularly to its interests in maintaining close strategic cooperation with Jordan and in developing a modicum of cooperation with Saudi Arabia against Iran.

An alternative scenario that might suit an ex-CIA head like Gates is increasingly being debated in moderate Iraqi circles. Like the prospect of direct talks with Iran and Syria, it has been hinted at in recent media interviews by Baker. This involves an American decision, prior to withdrawing, to place heavy constraints on the fledgling and problematic Iraqi democratic process and install a moderate, pro-western Shi'ite prime minister with emergency powers and a mandate to forcibly suppress pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias and leaders.

This would be a risky venture. If it fails, it could make matters even worse in Iraq. But even partial success would probably be welcomed by most of Iraq's neighbors (except Iran) and by Israel. How Bush would justify it in view of his advocacy of instant electoral democracy in the Arab world and his inability to admit that his democratic reform program has empowered mainly militant Islamists, would be a matter for the administration's spinmasters.

American concern for the fate of the Siniora government in Lebanon--the one US Middle East democratization project that has not entirely failed--could also produce administration pressures on Olmert, for example to eliminate IAF overflights of Lebanon.

Does the Gates appointment, or for that matter the Democratic takeover of Congress, bespeak a new approach to the Palestinian issue that Olmert should be concerned with in his meeting with Bush? Olmert has already agreed to a series of American requests for concessions and gestures aimed at strengthening Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen): allowing additional loyal forces and weapons to reinforce Fateh contingents in Gaza, opening up trade passages, etc. And he may conceivably soon confront a new Palestinian unity/technocrat government that the Quartet, including the US, agrees to interact with. Then, too, the administration in its final two years may prove more receptive to the Saudi peace initiative and to the needs of Saudi and other moderate Arab actors to see some progress on the Palestinian issue in order better to recruit their publics to a diplomatic campaign against Iran.

None of these current and possible developments in the Palestinian sphere reflects any apparent radical reversal of administration policy, e.g., by seeking to talk to Hamas or demanding that Olmert enter immediately into final status talks with Abbas. Gates, though known to be an advocate of negotiations with enemies, will be busy enough with Iraq and Iran and is not likely to be a major policy-making actor on Palestinian issues. More likely that President Bush and PM Olmert will agree to reconsider their options if and when a new Palestinian "package" is attained by Abu Mazen: a "Hamas lite" government, a stable ceasefire and the release of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit.

Taking the Iran, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon issues together, it would certainly be appropriate and advisable for Olmert to engage Bush in a "soul searching" exercise between close allies concerning the fallout in Israel from highly problematic American policies in the region. Israel has recently fought wars on two fronts against militant Islamist movements, Hamas and Hezbollah, that were empowered and legitimized by US-sponsored elections. In parallel, the American occupation of Iraq has enhanced the regional power and influence of Iran, whose aggressive policies and support for terrorists focus on Israel. Yet Olmert's competency level regarding national security issues, as evidenced by his management of this summer's Lebanon war and his recent appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as minister of strategic threats makes this an unlikely contingency.


Q. You mentioned Bush's possible concern with a Lebanese governmental crisis. How might that crisis affect the delicate fabric of Lebanese-Israeli relations in the aftermath of this summer's war?

A. Hezbollah and Amal have sparked a governmental crisis in Lebanon by pulling out of the Cabinet, ostensibly over the issue of ratifying a UN Security Council call to appoint an international tribunal to try the assassins of former PM Rafiq Hariri. On the basis of the Taif agreement from the late 1980s, constitutional practice in Lebanon requires that all major sects (the Shi'ites are the largest single sect in the country) be represented in a government. President Emil Lahoud, who is pro-Syrian and whose legitimacy is challenged by many Lebanese factions, has informed the Siniora government that its decisions will heretofore be considered null and void. Siniora, who leads the March 14 anti-Syrian forces, argues that his government remains valid as long as it commands a parliamentary majority, which it does even without the Shi'ites.

The crisis brings to a head the major ethnic and religious tensions in Lebanon for the first time since Hezbollah plunged the country into war with Israeli this summer. In the aftermath of the war and in view of Hezbollah's physical removal from the border with Israel, the militant pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian Shi'ite movement sought to expand its political base and influence inside the country by demanding one-third of the Cabinet portfolios for itself and its supporters, thereby giving it constitutional veto power over all major government decisions. Siniora refused and Hezbollah, which along with the Asad regime in Damascus is likely to be implicated by an international tribunal in the Hariri killing, catalyzed the new crisis.

The emerging situation, which pits Lebanon's pro-Syrians against its anti-Syrians, could have serious ramifications for the tenuous UNIFIL-patrolled ceasefire in the South, which Hezbollah as part of the government agreed to and Syria officially endorsed. Domestic political instability in Beirut could now conceivably be translated into attempts by Hezbollah to violate the ceasefire, and by Syria and Iran to step up their efforts to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah across the Syrian-Lebanese border.

In parallel, the behavior of the Siniora government might change: it could seek to mollify Syria and Hezbollah and ensure its political survival by taking an aggressive anti-Israel attitude, even to the extent of ordering UNIFIL to cease interfering with Hezbollah in the South. Or, conversely, it might feel empowered to try to deal directly with Israel despite Syrian displeasure. Its ratification today (without the Shi'ite ministers) of the international tribunal would appear to point to a readiness on Siniora's part to make courageous decisions.

In a worst-case scenario, Lebanon will collapse once again into civil war. But this time the Shi'ites, who largely sat out the previous civil war of the 1970s and '80s, would be a major player--on Israel's northern border.