It appears that I owe Mitt Romney a partial apology.  In yesterday's blog post I quoted from a video procured by Mother Jones' David Corn regarding Romney's perspective on the peace process between Israel and Palestine.  The tape suggested that Romney had zero hope for peace.  As Politico's Dylan Byers notes, however, the unedited version of the tape contained the following passage right after Romney had said that an ex-Secretary of State had told him that there was a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections.  After Romney said he didn't "delve" into it, he then added the following:   

But I always keep open: the idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world. We have done that time and time and time again. It does not work. So the only answer is show them strength. American strength, American resolve, and the Palestinians will some day reach the point where they want peace more than we’re trying to force peace on them. Then it’s worth having the discussion. So until then, it’s just wishful thinking (emphasis added).

OK, so it would appear that Romney does proffer a way of getting the two sides to talk.  My deepest apologies to Governor Romney for only printing the part of the statement that Mother Jones initially released. 

And yet... I have anothert question now.  I fear that Romney's "more resolve" strategy -- a theme he's echoed since making these comments in May -- raises more questions than answers. 

For exhibit A, let's go to the Financial Times' Najmeh Bozorgmehr, who interviewed Speaker of the Iranian Parliament (and possible future PM) Ali Larijani.   Here's what he had to say to Bozorgmehr about Mitt Romney: 

Military action against Iran would be “highly costly” for the US and threats issued by Mitt Romney as he tries to become the next American president are campaign rhetoric only and can be largely ignored, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian parliament, has told the FT.

Mr Romney has sought to portray himself as much tougher on Iran than President Barack Obama and more sympathetic to Israel’s concerns. But Mr Larijani is unimpressed, saying the Republican candidate has the “little bit of wisdom” needed to understand the consequences of waging war on the Islamic Republic.

So it would seem that Mr. Larijani doubts Romney's strength and resolve.  This is a problem. Romney's Theory of Statecraft seems to be that all U.S. problems in the world can be soled with Extra-Strength Resolve and Strength.  Now, even one accepts this premise, the failure of adversaries to believe Romney's promises means he's gonna have to display even more Extra-Strength Resolve and Strength to convince people that he is being strong... and resolute. 

The thing is, though, even Romney's allies doubt his strength and resolve... at least, they doubt his strength and resolve with respect to his China policy: 

Mitt Romney is hoping his tough talk on China policy will win him votes — but few of his big business donors or fellow Republicans support what he’s saying or believe he’d follow through if elected.

And if he did, many analysts say, he’d likely spark a disastrous and counter-productive trade war that would hurt both American consumers and the workers he says he’s trying to protect....

An actual Romney policy, many corporate executives believe, would have the same kind of focus on bringing cases before the World Trade Organization and negotiating behind closed doors — the same approach of Obama and George W. Bush.

“On his first day on the job, Romney is not going to put himself on the immediate defensive with the world’s second largest economy,” said one top financial industry executive who strongly supports Romney....

Romney hopes his tougher words will make Obama look weak. But the question remains whether Romney’s tough talk is just that: talk.

“It’s kind of a head scratcher,” said the senior financial services executive who supports Romney but questions his China policy. “Is this just rhetoric or is this really the view of the candidate?”

Now, to be fair, it's not just Romney supporters who don't believe Romney's resolve on China.  A Bloomberg Global Poll of  847 "decision makers in finance, markets and economics" showed that 82% of respondents were skeptical that Romney would designate China as a currency manipulator, for example. 

So we have a presidential candidate who thinks the way to get things done is to show resolve -- but neither his allies nor his adversaries believe Romney's own resolve.  Which leads to the following question:  is it possible that there is simply no amount of Extra-Strength Resolve and Strength that will allow Romney to bend the rest of the world to his will?  And if that's the case, what's his fallback option? 

Foreign policy didn't play much of a role at all in last night's GOP debate, but there were a few telling moments about Newt Gingrich's foreign policy worldview -- telling in that they scared the living crap out of your humble blogger. 

The foreign policy portion was devoted entirely to Newt Gingrich's description of the Palestinians an "invented people".  Gingrich doubled down during the debate, labeling all Palestinians as terrorists.  When pushed by Romney on the wisdom of going further rhetorically than Israel's Likud government on this point, Gingrich fell back on the "I'm speaking blunt truths like Reagan when he called the USSR an 'evil empire'" gambit. 

This is pretty odd.  Last I checked Israel was a democracy, had a healthy amount of free specch, and has a ruling coalition that seems pretty hardline with respect to the Palestinians.  I don't think the Israelis need an American candidate to speak truths to them that their government is hiding. 

To be honest, however, that wasn't the scariest part of Gingrich's rhetoric.  No, the part that set my hair on edge was during the last question on the night, when the candidates were asked what they'd learned from the other candidates. 

Gingrich responded by praising Rick Santorum's "consistency and courage on Iran."  He then added: 

If we do survive, it will be in part because of people like Rick who've had the courage to tell the truth about the Iranians for a long time. (emphasis added)

Now, this was practically a throwaway clause, but still, how can I put this clearly....  this is f***ing insane.  Totally, completely, utterly f***ing insane. 

Even a nuclear-armed Iran led by the current regime of nutball theocrats cannot threaten America's survival.  I get why the United States is concerned about Iran going nuclear, and I get why Israel is really concerned about Iran going nuclear.  The only way that developments in Iran could threaten America's survival, however, would be if the US policy response was so hyperbolic that it ignited a general Middle East war that dragged in Russia and China.  Which... come to think of it, wouldn't be entirely out of the question under a President Gingrich. 

Gingrich's apocalyptic rhetoric will go down well with many neoconservatives and GOP hawks, but to resuscitate a point I've made before: 

I'm about to say something that might be controversial for people under the age of 25, but here goes. You know the threats posed to the United States by a rising China, a nuclear Iran, terrorists and piracy? You could put all of them together and they don't equal the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Gingrich, as he is fond of pointing out nowadays, is a 68-year old grandfather and trained as a historian.  He should know better than to sound as apocalyptic in his foreign policy statements as the very mullahs he lambasts.   

As Andrew Sullivan (the only other debate-watcher who picked up on this line) observed, "Wow. Does Gingrich really believe that the US faces an existential threat from Iran? Or is he running for the Likud party?"

Indeed. 

The Days of Rage seem to be persisting in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is gunning for 2011's Marie Antoinette Award for Most Clueless Political Response By a Leader, and Egyptian protestors have completely and repeatedly ignored the 4 PM curfew announced on Friday.  The police have withdrawn, the armed forces are out but not exactly stopping the protestors, and anyone vaguely related to Hosni Mubarak appears to have decided this was a swell time to shop at Harrod's.  The official U.S. take on the situation is to tap-dance as fast as humanly possible not say all that much. 

So.... what now?  What's going to happen?   Like I said last week -- and like Paul Krugman -- I don't know.  But having spent the morning watching the Sunday talk shows and the afternoon feverishly updating my Twitter feed, let me take this opportunity to ask as many provocative questions as I can: 

1)  Why is Mubarak toast?  Everyone assumes that the Egyptian leader is a dead man walking, and given his speech on Friday, I can understand that sentiment.  There are, however, remaining options for Mubarak to pursue, ranging from a full-blown 1989 Tiananmen square crackdown to a slow-motion 2009 Tehran-style crackdown. 

Obviously, these aren't remotely good options for anyone involved.  The first rule in political science, however, is that leaders want to stay in power, and Mubarak has given no indication that he wants to leave.  He could be packing up as I type this -- but 80-year old strongmen don't tend to faint at the first spot of trouble. 

The Days of Rage have clearly altered the future of Egypt -- Gamel Mubarak is not going to succeed his father.  How much additional change will take place is unclear. 

2)  Could the army crack down if it wanted to?  Contradicting my first question, the one thing I wonder is whether the Egyptian state has the capacity to crack down any more.  Egypt's internal security forces have failed miserably.  This leaves the army, an institution that has, to date, commanded respect across all walks of life in Egypt and refrained from direct internal coercion activities . 

The fact that jets buzzed Tahrir Dquare suggests two things.  First, the military is trying to signal to protestors to, you know, go home.  Second, the military might not have the available tools to make this point more effectively, and might not be able to efficiently dispatch protestors if so desired.  If this cable is accurate, the Egyptian military has long-focused on developing its conventional warfare capabilities, which is great for an armored attack in the desert and lousy for subduing a restive civilian population. 

I'm sure the military could restore order if necessary, but it would be a hugely inefficient enterprise.  The hit to their reputation would be massive. 

3)  Has U.S. influence over the situation increased and not decreased?  Again, lots of talk today about how U.S. can't really shape the outcome.  OK, except that I don't think the following statements add up:

a)  The Egyptian armed forces are now the central pillar propping up the Egyptian state;

b)  The Egyptian and American defense establishments have strong ties;

c)  U.S. aide to Egypt is roughly $3 billion a year;

d)  U.S. influence over the situation has waned.

As the Obama administration's rhetoric shifts -- going from calling on Mubarak to take action to talk about "transition" -- I wonder whether the U.S. is simply following the situation on the ground, or whether the situation on the ground has allowed the administration to start exerting more leverage. 

4)  After Egypt, which country in the region is the most nervous?  This ain't Tunisia, it's the heart of the Arab Middle East.  Regime chage in Egypt will send shockwaves across Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Libya and Syria. 

That said, I suspect the most nervous country in the region will be Israel.  When I was there this summer listening to their top security experts, Egypt was barely mentioned.  The cornerstone of Israel's security was the notion that Egypt was a partner and not a threat.  A region in which Iran, Turkey and Egypt all adopt hostile attitudes towards the State of Israel is, let's say, not an ideal situation.  If both Turkey and Egypt look like democracies a year from now, that makes things even worse. 

5)  Is the Muslim Brotherhood really all that and a bag of chips?  The MB wasn't behind the latest protests, and it's not entirely clear how much support they actually command in Egypt. This hasn't stopped speculation about what an MB-led Egypt would look like.  While everyone is evoking what happened in Iran in 1979, I keep thinking that the Egyptian military is a lot more robust now than the Iranian military was back then.  Stratfor speculates otherwise, but they don't have much data to back up their claim.  I find it interesting that the MB threat has not deterred neoconservatives from supporting, at a minimum, regime change in Egypt. 

[So do you have any answers?--ed.  The U.S. should be pursuing a broad-spectrum policy of engaging any and every actor in Egypt right now, but the key is the military.  All available pressure -- including an aid cutoff -- should be put on that institution to not intervene and not attack civilians.  If that happens, I think that all the other dominoes fall.] 

A few days ago my group went to Ramallah to meet with some leading figures in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority - including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.  Here are my impressions from that seven-hour visit: 

1)  As much as the Israeli economy is booming, Ramallah is in the middle of the mother of all construction booms.  Practically every block has a crane with construction going on - and not an empt6y crane either, but one with actual work going on.  While the city is poorer than a comparable Israeli village, I should note that an awful lot of those new buildings look like the Palestinian version of McMansions. 

2)  For all the talk about Fatah being a secular movement, most of the people we saw outside of the Palestinian Authority (PA) buildings looked a bit more religious.  Except for those women working for the PA, every woman I saw on the street was wearing the hijab. 

3)  The one Palestinian all of our Israeli interlocutors praised was Fayyad, so it was quite interesting to meet him.  He's not a Fatah member, and has all the charisma of an economist.  That said, he has one thing that few people on either side possessed - a healthy dollop of optimism.  Fayyad has been hard at work trying to build the Palestinian state from the ground up, focusing on both the mundane (garbage collection) and the not-so-mundane (security).  The general consensus is that the West Bank is far safer and far better run than it was five years ago.  Fayyad's goal seems to be to get the Israelis to realize that the Palestinians are competent at statebuilding.  So far, the Israelis appear to concede that progress has been made.  That said, both the PA and the Israelis fear a reversal if further progress is not made during the peace talks. 

4)  There is a wide disagreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians about the explanation behind the disappearance of terrorist attacks emanating from the West Bank - and, more generally, the lack of violence during Operation Cast Lead or even the recent flotilla incident.  The Israelis credit Operation Defensive Shield, the security barrier, and the Israeli Defense Forces (a joke repeated by many Israelis we met was that Abu Mazen has the best security force in the word - the IDF).  PA officials credited improved Palestinian security forces and the conscious self-restraint of the Palestinian people.  One PA official claimed - and an former Israeli official confirmed - that 25,000 Palestinians cross the barrier undetected for economic reasons, and should the PA want to cause trouble, the barrier would be only a minor impediment.  This official later claimed that the PA could launch missiles onto Tel Aviv if they so decided. 

5)  There is also a wide divergence of preferences about the status quo.  As noted previously, the Israelis are pretty happy.  Fatah is less happy - they feel like they're doing the dirty work to enhance Israeli security without realizing any benefits in terms of peace negotiations.  They worry that unless progress is made on final status negotiation soon, they will lose power to Hamas.  I have every confidence that fair-minded FP readers can evaluate these claims. 

6)    About the border crossing and the security barrier.  Getting into Ramallah was pretty easy - the Israelis don't care who goes through, and the PA had no checkpoints.  Once inside, it's impossible to look at the concrete barrier and not think of the Berlin Wall.  Same concrete, same distribution of graffiti (no graffiti on the Israeli side, plenty on the Palestinian) and similar message content (though an awful lot of it was in English, which I found convenient ).  Getting back into Israel was much more onerous.  The lines were long, and the wait was interminable.  The Palestinians were pretty unfazed by the wait - for them, this was standard operating procedure.  On the other hand, Dalia Rabin, the head of the Rabin Institute and daughter of the late prime minister, had to be detained because she couldn't walk through the metal detector for health reasons. 

7)  I have something very controversial to say, so let's just get this out in the open:  the hummus at the Mirador Hotel in Ramallah is better than the hummus at the King David in Jerusalem  [Way to inflame tensions!!-ed.  I call them as I see them.]

UPDATE:  Yes, I meant seven thoughts, not six.  My counting skills are the first thing to go when I'm jet-lagged. 

Halfway through my Israel vist, I've heard from a lot of high-ranking officials, strategists and academics about how they see Israel's security situation.  It would be safe to say that there are a few paradoxes. 

On the one hand, there are ways in which Israel's security situation has been better over the past 18 months than it has been for a long time. The rocket attack in Ashkelon was striking because it was the first one since Operation Cast Lead.  Rocket fire from Gaza went from 20-30 a day to one every other week or so.  Hamas is running Gaza, but Israel has enough reconnaissance equipment overhead and along the border to, as one IDF soldier put it, "know enough to know the brand of olive oil they put on their hummus."

Similarly, in the north, there has been no rocket fire since the 2006 Lebanon war. As for the West Bank, suicide terrorism has disappeared from Israel proper, and the Israelis sound confident that terrorist  networks are pretty much nonexistent.  The Israeli officials believe that the Palestinian Authority under Salid Fayyam Salam Fayyad are slowly and steadily developing administrative competencies, which help to ease the likelihood of Hamas developing a foothold. 

Why are things so good right now?  The Israelis believe it's because Hezbollah and Hamas now control territory, which means that they can be deterred.  As one official put it, both Hezbollah and Hamas have transformed themselves from strong terrorist networks to weak armies.  Israel fought bitterly against these outcomes, but they're comfortable with the status quo. 

Actually, most Israelis are too comfortable with the status quo.  The bad news is that Israeli security experts also recognize that all of the long-term trends are working against them.  As military forces, both Hamas and Hezbollah are only getting stronger, with rockets that can hit further into Israel proper.  Iran is developing its nuclear capabilities and supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.  The demographics are such that, unless Israel lets go of the West Bank very soon, Jews will become a distinct minority.  The window for a viable two-state solution is closing fast. 

So, what should be done?  Israelis don't have a great answer to this question, beyond "let the status quo continue."  They think containment can work in Gaza, and that engagement can work in the West Bank.  The wishful thinking that regime change will solve Israel's problem runs strong and deep within Israeli security circles (coincidentally, this is the only issue on which Israelis sound more optimistic than their America counterparts).  Mostly, however, Israeli officials are concerned that the attractiveness of the status quo will lull the population into inaction.  At a time when Israel could exploit its temporary advantages into the best deal possible, there isn't a lot of forward progress on any of Israel's security issues.  And normal Israeli citizens just want to go to the beach - which creates a problem that I'll discuss in my next post.

Your humble blogger will be a bit more focused on the Middle East for the next ten days.  That's because I'll be going on the road to Israel and the Occupied Territories as part of IR summer camp a fact-finding trip sponsored by the good people at Academic Exchange.   

I tried talking the folks at MTV into bringing along a camera crew to film a Jersey Shore-type of show: 

ME:  This is an awesome trip.  You'll get lots of good footage!!

MTV:  Who else is going?

ME:  A bunch of other IR professors.

MTV:  No, no, what are their Jersey Shore monikers? 

ME:  Oh, well, let's see, there's LJ, Bobby, Debbie, Marty, Mad Skillz Mikey, Steph, Goldie, Work of Art, A-Down, KupKake, D-Lake, Valentino, B-Woww, and "The Drezner," among others.    

MTV:  Cool names!! Whatcha gonna be doing?

ME:  Meeting with high-ranking Israeli, Palestinian and civil society leaders to get a nuanced sense of what's really going on.

MTV:  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Well, their loss. 

Seriously, as embarrassing as it is for a Jewish kid raised in Connecticut to admit, this will be my first visit to Israel.  The trip will hopefully afford me an opportunity to be co-opted by the Israel Lobby get a better understanding of how Israelis and Palestinians think about the situation over there.  I'm sure I will learn a lot - and I'll be sure to provide the readers of Foreignpolicy.com plenty of updates about B-Woww's binge drinking what I've learned along the way. 

Shalom!! 

Passover begins this evening, and with it comes the Four Questions that are asked at the Seder every year.  Contra Slate's Micharl Rubiner, a good Seder should have some lively debate. 

I bring this up because Ethan Bronner's news analysis in the New York Times today nicely captures divisions within the United States and Israel over the importance of the peace process going forward.  It also suggests two more questions that should be asked: 

[T]wo main issues are keeping American-Israeli tensions on the front burner: disagreement on the effects of what happens in Jerusalem on the rest of the Middle East, and the strength of the Palestinian leadership.  

The Obama administration considers establishing a Palestinian state central to other regional goals; it also believes that the Palestinians, led by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, are ready to run a country. The Netanyahu government disagrees on both counts. It thinks the issue of Palestinian statehood has little effect on broader American concerns and is also dubious about the ability of the Palestinians to create an entity that can resist a radical takeover.

So, my questions to you: 

1)  Do you believe that the Israel/Palestine issue is central to wider regional policy concerns?

2)  Is the current Palestinian leadership capable of running an independent Palestine?

Discuss. 

So I took Tom Ricks' advice and read through the transcript of Fareed Zakaria's Global Public Square interview with Barack Obama from this past summer. 

Obama acquits himself well during the whole interview, but this part about Israel and Palestine stood out for me: 

Israel has an interest not just in bunkering down. They've got to recognize that their long-term viability as a Jewish state is going to depend on their ability to create peace with their neighbors.

The Palestinian leadership has to acknowledge that the battles that they've been fighting, and the direction that they've been going in and the rhetoric they've been employing, has not delivered for their people. And it is very hard, given the history of that region and the sense of grievance on both sides, to step back and say, let's be practical and figure out what works.

But I think that's what the people of Israel and the people in the West Bank and Gaza are desperate for, is just some practical, commonsense approaches that would result in them feeling safe, secure and able to live their lives and educate their children.

I'm in complete agreement that this is what the parties in the region should do.  It's become increasingly clear, however, that none of the salient actors in the region possess anything like the willingness to acknowledge these facts of life. 

As Jonathan Chait, Todd Gitlin and Michael Cohen observe, Hamas really is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  And Israel has long been unwilling to moderate its behavior on housing settlements in the ocupied territories. 

My point here is that while Obama's rough outline of a solution makes perfect sense to me, I have no idea how we get from point A (the current moment) to point B (a moment when the relevant actors in Israel and Palestine agree with Obama).