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Jewish World Review Nov. 10, 2006 /19 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766 Olmert's ill-timed Washington visit By Caroline B. Glick
The new wind blowing out of Washington will easily cast weak Israeli prime minister asunder
The consequences of this turn of events on Israel will be dramatic.
Unfortunately, it is doubtful that anyone has explained them to Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of his scheduled visit to the White House next week.
Across the political spectrum in Washington today there is a sense that
after years of wavering, in the wake of the Democratic victory in Tuesday's
Congressional elections, President Bush transferred control over American
foreign policy to his father's anti-war advisors.
The President's announcement of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
"resignation" Wednesday signaled the transfer of control over the war
against radical Islam from Bush's team to Bush pere's team. Robert Gates,
Bush's nominee to replace Rumsfeld, served as his father's deputy national
security adviser and CIA director. Gates, who will arrive at the Pentagon
from his present position as President of Texas A&M University where Bush I's
presidential library is located, is closely associated with former national
security advisor Brent Scowcroft and former secretary of state James Baker.
He is a member in good standing of the Arabist wing of the Republican Party
which dominated the President's father's administration.
In recent years, Gates made one notable foray into the world of
international affairs. In 2004 he collaborated with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
former national security advisor in the Carter administration. Like former
president Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski is one of Israel's greatest adversaries
in US policymaking circles. It is hard to recall a problem, conflict, crisis
or war in the Middle East over the past thirty years that Brzezinski has not
managed to blame on Israel.
Gates and Brzezinski co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored
Task Force charged with recommending a US policy for dealing with Iran. In
July 2004 they published their recommendations. The Task Force called for
the Bush administration to directly engage the mullahs and to use "fewer
sticks and more carrots" to convince the regime in Teheran to stop enriching
uranium, and to stop supporting al Qaida and the insurgencies in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In an effort to convince the Iranians to cooperate, the two
recommended that the US discard regime overthrow as a policy option and move
more forcefully to establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible.
They also recommended that the US pressure Israel not to take any military
action against the Iranian nuclear facilities arguing that such Israeli
actions would undermine US national interests.
In recent months, Gates has been serving as a member of the Iraq Study Group
chaired by Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. The Congressionally
mandated committee is scheduled to recommend new strategies for managing the
war in Iraq to Bush later in the month.
In a series of recent press interviews, Baker and Hamilton have indicated
that they will recommend that Bush enter into negotiations with Iran and
Syria. The proposed talks they say, will serve to motivate Iran and Syria to
stabilize the situation in Iraq in a manner that will pave the way for a
retreat of US forces from the country.
Since it is Iranian and Syrian sponsorship of the insurgency that is causing
the war to continue, it is fairly clear that Baker is egging for a temporary
ceasefire that will last long enough to enable a pullout of US forces. The
fact that the price of the temporary ceasefire will be a US defeat in Iraq
and the surrender of Iraq to the tender mercies of Iran and Syria is
apparently okay by Baker.
Some of Bush's critics on the Right claim that Bush's nomination of Gates to
replace Rumsfeld won't change anything. Since in point of fact Bush has been
conducting talks in various venues with Teheran for the past five years, and
given that since 2002 the establishment of a Palestinian state has been a
central plank of US Middle East policy, these conservative critics argue
that the Gates-Brzezinski recommendations are already official policy.
Moreover, as Michael Ledeen from the American Enterprise Institute, who
served with Gates in the Reagan administration argues, when Bush made the
decision in April 2003 not to widen the campaign in Iraq to the sources of
the then-nascent insurgency in Syria and Iran, the President effectively
decided not to win the war in Iraq. This is the case because Iraq is merely
one front in a regional war. The US cannot win the regional war while
limiting its operations to playing defense on one front.
When seen from this perspective, far from signaling a strategic shift in US
policy, Gates' nomination merely serves to restate an existing policy.
Yet Bush's policies to date have been far from consistent. Indeed, for the
past several years Bush has been simultaneously advancing two contradictory
policies. On the one hand, as his critics on the Right have repeatedly
stated, though his engagement of Teheran and support for Palestinian
statehood, he has been carrying out a policy of appeasement towards the
Iranians and the Arabs. At the same time however, Bush supported Israel in
the war this summer. He isolated the Palestinian Authority after Hamas took
power, and throughout his first term in office, he refused to meet with
Yassir Arafat in spite of the significant domestic and international
pressure exerted on him to do so.
Practically speaking, Bush supported Israel's right to take action to defend
itself. (What Israel did with his support is a completely separate issue.)
As to Iran, Bush distinguished himself from his predecessors by announcing
his support for the overthrow of the regime in Teheran. In recent months,
Bush and at least some of the members of his administration pointed fingers
at Damascus and Teheran for their sponsorship of the insurgents in Iraq, for
Hizbullah in Lebanon and for Palestinian terror groups in Gaza, Judea and
Samaria.
So when the full breadth of Bush's policies is taken into consideration, his
decision to appoint Gates does signal a strategic shift in direction.
Rumsfeld was completely identified with Bush's pro-Israel policies and with
his hawkish stances towards Islamic radicalism. Rumsfeld's ouster and
replacement by a follower of Baker, Bush pere and Scowcroft signals a clean
break with the policies Rumsfeld embodied. Furthermore, by sacking Rumsfeld
the day after the elections, Bush sent a signal to the Democrats that he is
willing to forego victory in exchange for political breathing space.
Did Bush have to respond to the elections by abandoning his strategic goals
in the war? Some claim that pro-war Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman's
reelection is a sign that support for the war is not a recipe for political
defeat. Lieberman, it should be recalled, was defeated this summer in the
Democratic primaries for his Senate seat by anti-war businessman Ned Lamont.
That defeat, in a race riddled with anti-Semitic attacks, forced Lieberman
to run as an Independent in the general elections. His victory this week is
pointed to as proof that supporting the war is not political suicide.
There are two main problems with this view. First, Lieberman's race was
unique. As a three-term, successful Democratic senator, Lieberman's defeat
in the primary did not end his support among a significant group of
Democrats. At the same time, his support for the war won him the Republican
vote. Republican senators like Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania were defeated
with similar positions on the war because they were unable to garner any
significant support among Democrats and only a handful of other Democrats
ran as avowedly pro-war candidates.
Secondly, while Lieberman won his reelection victory, he and fellow war
supporters lost the war for the soul of the Democratic Party. A lifelong
Democrat, Lieberman had to leave the party to win reelection. And he will
not share the fruits of the Democratic victory in the Senate in his new
status as an Independent. He will enjoy no benefits of seniority. He will
not receive a committee chairmanship. While some claim that as an
Independent in a closely divided Senate he will have the power to tip the
scales in favor of either party, the fact is that neither party is strong
enough to make proper use of his vote. So he lacks real political power.
More than anything, the partyless Lieberman will serve as a constant
reminder of the power of the radical Left. The radical, anti-war Left which
spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting anti-war candidates and so
brought about Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primaries, made a
decisive contribution to the Republican defeat in the general election. The
threat posed by radical leftist donors, like multi-billionaire George Soros
who have launched a crusade against all proponents of the war against
radical Islam, makes Democrats and Republicans alike want to put the Iraq
war behind them before the 2008 elections.
This is the Washington that will greet Olmert during his visit on Monday. If
fortunes had been reversed and Olmert were arriving in Washington after a
Republican victory, had he be inclined to do so, Olmert could have used the
visit as an opportunity to communicate a number of critical messages.
First, he could have recalled that Bush qualified US support for Palestinian
statehood on a Palestinian embrace of democracy, peace, and active
opposition to terrorism. Since by electing totalitarian terrorists to power
the Palestinians have proven incontrovertibly that they oppose democratic
values of freedom and human rights, support terror, and oppose peaceful
coexistence with Israel, Bush's continued support for Palestinian statehood
makes a mockery of his support for democracy in the Middle East.
As for Iran, if the Republicans had been victorious, Olmert could have made
clear to Bush that history will judge him not only by what he has done in
Iraq, but by what he will do against Iran and North Korea. Olmert could have
presented a plan for a joint Israeli-American operation to destroy Iran's
nuclear installations.
But of course, the Republicans lost the elections. Politicians and defense
secretaries who would have willingly listened to such messages from an
Israeli prime minister have been booted out of office, thrown into the back
benches of Congress, and fired by Bush.
Today Israel stands alone against the Palestinians. More disturbingly, the
responsibility for preventing Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities has
moved conclusively from Washington to Jerusalem.
If Olmert were a strong leader, in light of the Republican defeat and Bush's
response to that defeat, he could use the meeting as an opportunity to tell
Bush that Israel accepts responsibility for attacking Iran's nuclear
installations. But Olmert, who spent his last visit in the US capital trying
to convince the Americans to support his plan to surrender Judea and Samaria
to Hamas, is not a strong leader. He is a weak leader. The new wind blowing
out of Washington will easily cast him asunder.
In truth, little good will come from Monday's meeting at the White House. It
is too bad he can't simply cancel it. Israel would be better off if Olmert
called in sick on Monday morning.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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