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Iran: Michael Ledeen vs. Flynt Leverett

Here is the transcript of an interesting debate about Iran, between Michael Ledeen, the leading advocate of a strategy of regime change, and Flynt Leverett, the leading proponent of the theory that a grand bargain with Iran is possible.

By Steve Rosen  |  March 4, 2010 at 10:16 am  |  Permalink

J-Street not invited to Biden meeting

Those who found my recent piece, "Barack Obama: More AIPAC than J-Street" interesting, may find further evidence in the fact that J-Street was not invited to Vice President Biden's meeting with community leaders yesterday. Accoding to Politico, "Among those who attended the powwow yesterday, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations's Alan Solow and Malcolm Hoenlein, the Orthodox Union's Nathan Diament, the Jewish Federation of North America's Kathy Manning, AIPAC's Lee Rosenberg, the Reform Jewish Movement's Rabbi David Saperstein, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Rabbi Steven Wernick, former Congressman Robert Wexler, as well as long-time Biden friends Jack Rosen, formerly with the American Jewish Committee, and philanthropist and Democratic donor Haim Saban. Among those who attended from the White House: Dennis Ross, the NSC's senior Iran and wider regional strategist, NSC Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa Daniel Shapiro, Biden and his longtime advisor Tony Blinken.

By Steve Rosen  |  March 3, 2010 at 6:45 pm  |  Permalink

Obama's Iran Team

Josh Rogin, who took over The Cable blog at Foreign Policy when Laura Rozen defected to Politico, just published a handy guide to the key people working the Iran issue in the Obama administration.

Here are key excerpts:

Bill Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs

Burns is the administration lead on the multilateral process to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. His primary, but not exclusive role is to lead the U.S. in the P5+1 talks (the permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany). A skilled diplomat, he was previously

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By Steve Rosen  |  February 12, 2010 at 10:53 pm  |  Permalink

Interesting George Mitchell Interview

Mideast Envoy George Mitchell made some interesting observations in an interview with Charlie Rose.

Obama's Demand for a Settlement Freeze

Charlie Rose: The New York Times editorial [says] that the past year has not been successful because the administration stressed a settlement freeze....By focusing on a settlement freeze, which Israelis were unlikely to agree to, you created disappointment from the beginning, because it was an unachievable objective.

George Mitchell: If you want to get 60 percent, do you begin by asking for 60 percent?

Charlie Rose: No. You ask for a hundred.

George Mitchell: Oh, there you go, Charlie. You've already figured out negotiations. So what we got was -- what we got was a moratorium, ten months, far less than what was requested, but more significant than any action taken by any previous government of Israel for the 40 years that the settlement enterprise has existed, ten months of no new starts in the West Bank, less than what we asked, much, much greater than any prior government has done. And we think over time it's going to make a significant difference on the ground.

Getting Talks Started

Charlie Rose: You hope to accomplish this in two years. The moratorium is for ten months....That gives you an incentive to say to the parties ...better get something done before the moratorium ends because I don't know if we can get it again.

George Mitchell: Charlie, will you come with me on my next visit and make that little spiel? Because it might sound better coming from you. I have made it several times....We have suggested to the Israelis .. a series of steps and actions that they could take that would encourage President Abbas to enter the—

Charlie Rose: So why can't you tell me what they are, that's my question.

George Mitchell: Well because I want to discuss it with them before I discuss it you.

Jerusalem

George Mitchell: ...Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980....for the Israelis, what they're building in, is in part of Israel. Now, the others don't see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. ...The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in or construction in East Jerusalem. They don't regard that as a settlement because they think it's part of Israel....

Charlie Rose: So you're going to let them go ahead even though no one recognized the annexation.

George Mitchell: When you say let them go ahead, it's what they regard as their country. They don't regard -- they don't say they're letting us go ahead when we build in Manhattan or in the Bronx or --

Charlie Rose: But don't the international rules have something to do with what somebody can do to define as their country?

George Mitchell: There are disputed legal issues. .. And we could spend the next 14 years arguing over disputed legal issues or we can try to get a negotiation to resolve them in a manner that meets the aspirations of both societies. .

Deadline or Target Date

George Mitchell: We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years, once begun we think it can be done within that period of time. We hope the parties agree.

Israel-Syria Talks

George Mitchell...Until now, the Syrians want to complete the indirect talks through Turkey that began in 2008 ... The Israelis prefer immediate and direct negotiations with the Syrians, not completing the indirect process through the Turks. ..And I will be going to both Israel and Syria on my upcoming visit to try to further this process. And we are prepared to do it in any manner which is acceptable to the two sides. So far they have not found a formula that would enable them to get into it. ... And we believe that an Israel-Syria track could operate in parallel with an Israeli-Palestinian track on discussions.

Prisoner Exchange with Hamas

Charlie Rose: There is the talk of a prisoner exchange. Would that build confidence in the Israelis could get the Hamas prisoner back?

George Mitchell: Well, that will not build confidence with the Palestinian authority because it will, in fact, be seen as a validation of Hamas' tactics, which is violence resistance. ...It's an excruciatingly difficult decision because it does send the message that their violent resistance has paid off. And of course it will lead others around the world to seek more hostages. And that's one of the toughest things that -- decisions that the prime minister has to make. And we accept the reality that he's got to keep making this effort. But what we think is that there should also be actions taken with respect to the Palestinian authority, which believes in peaceful negotiation. And that's the approach that ought to be rewarded.

U.S. Pressure on Israel

George Mitchell: The reality is that, yes, of course the United States has both carrots and sticks, you have to be very careful about how and when you use them and apply [inaudible] -- ...Under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees to Israel. President George W. Bush did so...On one occasion... That's one mechanism that has been publicly discussed, there are others. And you have to keep open whatever options, but our view is that, we think the way to approach this is to try to persuade the parties what is in their self interests.

Obama's Popularity in Israel

Charlie Rose: Why is President Obama's popularity so low in Israel? It's four percent.

George Mitchell: No, that's completely false...Several polls that I've seen in the past month show that he is—I'll give you the numbers, 49 favorable, 45 unfavorable, 43 favorable, 37 unfavorable; it's a reasonable. A plurality support him in Israel and a small plurality oppose him.

By Steve Rosen  |  January 7, 2010 at 11:04 am  |  Permalink

Mitchell on Parallel Israel/Palestinian Talks

Special Envoy George Mitchell, in an interview with the Center for American Progress published on December 1, 2009, raised the possibility of "parallel talks between the U.S. and Israel and the U.S. and the Palestinians on key issues ." Here are excerpts of the interview:

Framework for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

Q: You've spoken about multiple levels of negotiations, whether bilateral, multilateral, or back-to-back between the U.S. and each of the parties. Can you tell us more about what kind of negotiations you envision if you can get the parties to the table?

A: We have always intended for negotiations to proceed on a variety of tracks. These will include high-level direct talks to establish a framework for the negotiations and set a positive atmosphere in which they can proceed; parallel talks between the U.S. and Israel and the U.S. and the Palestinians on key issues, such as security; and lower-level direct talks in which negotiators work through the details of the

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By Steve Rosen  |  December 28, 2009 at 3:21 pm  |  Permalink

Abbas: "I could have reached an agreement with Olmert"

Haaretz reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Asharq Al-Awsat, "I negotiated with [Olmert] and felt we could have reached an agreement." Abbas said a meeting had been scheduled to take place between negotiators Shalom Turgeman and Saeb Erekat, but that the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza effectively ended negotiations.

By Steven Rosen  |  December 20, 2009 at 12:30 pm  |  Permalink

Netanyahu's New Agreement with Mitchell

Netanyahu's New Agreement with Mitchell

BY STEVEN J. ROSEN

Foreign Policy DECEMBER 18, 2009

For a year or two at an early stage in his career, I commuted to and from our adjacent offices each morning and evening with Martin Indyk, later a top peace-process official of the Clinton administration at the Camp David negotiations and now vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. I had just left the Rand Corporation to work at AIPAC, the main pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington.

Even in those pre-Oslo days of 1982 to 1983, Martin was a True Believer in the idea of a grand land-for-peace bargain between Israel and moderate Palestinians. Reviewing each day the latest installments in the Middle East epic as we rolled down Rock Creek Parkway, we argued all the way. I heaped scorn on any solution that required Israel to trust Palestinian intentions, and I held that Israel's security could only be based on a qualitative military edge and the balance of power. I told Martin that he and our mutual friends Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer, though with the noblest of intentions, were pursuing an illusion.

Martin emphatically thought I was wrong about the Middle East, and he also thought I was blind to an enduring reality in Washington. He said that Democratic and Republican administrations of the left and right may come and go, and some presidents will have less confidence in Middle East peacemaking than others, but no U.S. president will be able to sustain a policy of benign neglect of the peace process for long. The American people, the United States' European allies, and U.S. friends in the Arab world all need to have a ray of hope. They need to believe that active diplomacy under U.S. leadership is bringing closer a resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, because it is a conflict that roils other American interests and destabilizes U.S. relations in the region and throughout the world. Martin often cited our friend, the late Peter Rodman, who taught us that U.S. policy in the Middle East is a bicycle. You can keep your balance if you roll forward even at a snail's pace, but if you try to stand still you will fall off.

Martin never did succeed in converting me to the peace camp, but over time I saw the undeniable evidence that he was right about the imperatives of U.S. foreign policy. Sooner or later, every president turns to the peace process, and the Mideast advisors who move to the president's inner circle are the ones he thinks have the best ideas about how to move forward toward a contractual peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

I think Benjamin Netanyahu has gone through a personal evolution a little like my own. He continues to be profoundly skeptical that signing a piece of paper can put an end to this conflict. He is a fierce advocate of defensible borders and military strength as the true guarantors of Israel's security. Nevertheless, he has come back to a second term as prime minister with a deeper appreciation of the reality that his relations with the United States, Europe, and moderate Arab neighbors depend on the perception that he can be a partner in the search for diplomatic progress with the Palestinians. And he certainly knows that many harbor doubts about him.

That is why Bibi agreed to do something unprecedented, something that six previous

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By Steve Rosen  |  December 19, 2009 at 11:15 am  |  Permalink

More details of Olmert offer disclosed

Haaretz published more details about the specific terms former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Olmert offered Abbas land near Gaza as swap for settlements

By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

Haaretz 17/12/2009

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert proposed giving the Palestinians land from communities bordering the Gaza Strip and from the Judean Desert nature reserve in exchange for Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

According to the map proposed by Olmert, which is being made public here for the first time, the future border between Israel and the Gaza Strip would be adjacent to kibbutzim and moshavim such as Be'eri, Kissufim and Nir Oz, whose fields would be given to the Palestinians. [Olmert's map for Jerusalem is here.]

Olmert also proposed giving land to a future Palestinian state in the Beit She'an Valley near Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi; in the Judean Hills near Nataf and Mevo Betar; and in the area of Lachish and of the Yatir Forest. Together, the areas would have involved the transfer of 327 square kilometers of territory from within the Green Line.
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Olmert presented his map to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in September of last year. Abbas did not respond, and negotiations ended. In an interview with Haaretz on Tuesday, Abbas said Olmert had presented several drafts of his map.

The version being disclosed Thursday in Haaretz is based on sources who received detailed information about Olmert's proposals.

Olmert wanted to annex 6.3 percent of the West Bank to Israel, areas that are home to 75 percent of the Jewish population of the territories. His proposal would have also involved evacuation of dozens of settlements in the Jordan Valley, in the eastern Samarian hills and in the Hebron region. In return for the annexation to Israel of Ma'aleh Adumim, the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements, Ariel, Beit Aryeh and settlements adjacent to Jerusalem, Olmert proposed the transfer of territory to the Palestinians equivalent to 5.8 percent of the area of the West Bank as well as a safe-passage route from Hebron to the Gaza Strip via a highway that would remain part of the sovereign territory of Israel but where there would be no Israeli presence.

Olmert gave Col. (res.) Danny Tirza, who had been the primary official involved in planning the route of the security fence, the task of developing the map that would provide the permanent border between Israel and the Palestinian state. Olmert's proposed annexation to Israel of settlement blocs corresponds in large part to the route of the security fence. In his proposal for a territory swap, Olmert rejected suggestions previously raised involving the transfer to the Palestinians of the eastern Lachish hills, deciding instead to establish communities there for evacuees from the Gaza Strip. He also showed a preference for giving the Palestinians agricultural land over the transfer of the Halutza sands near the Egyptian border.

The implementation of the Olmert plan would require the evacuation of tens of thousands of settlers and the removal of hallmarks of the West Bank settlement enterprise such as Ofra, Beit El, Elon Moreh and Kiryat Arba, as well as the Jewish community in Hebron itself.

Olmert reached a verbal understanding with the Bush administration to the effect that Israel would receive American financial aid to develop the Negev and Galilee to absorb some of those settlers evacuated from the West Bank. Other evacuees would have been resettled in new apartments to be built in the settlement blocs that Israel would annex.

Olmert's office said in response to the disclosure of the plan: "On September 16, 2008, [Olmert] presented Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] a map that had been prepared based upon dozens of conversations that the two held in the course of the intensive negotiations after the Annapolis summit. The map that was presented was designed to solve the problem of the borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state. Giving Abu Mazen the map was conditioned upon signing a comprehensive and final agreement with the Palestinians so it would not be used as an 'opening position' in future negotiations the Palestinians sought to conduct. Ultimately, when Abu Mazen did not give his consent to a final and complete agreement, the map was not given to him."

Olmert's office also told Haaretz that "naturally for reasons of national responsibility, we cannot relate to the content of that map and the details of the proposal. At the same time, it should be stressed that in the details contained in your question, there are a not inconsiderable number of inaccuracies that are not consistent with the map that was ultimately presented."

Olmert is currently suggesting that his map provide the basis for the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians. In his talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign statesmen, the former prime minister has said the international community must demand a formal response from Abbas to the Olmert proposal and proceed from there in the talks. Olmert has not presented the detailed map to Netanyahu.

Shaul Arieli of the Council for Peace and Security, which developed a map with a final border as part of the Geneva Initiative, said Israel's capacity to swap territory with a future Palestinian state is more limited than what Olmert reportedly proposed.

By Steve Rosen  |  December 16, 2009 at 11:33 pm  |  Permalink

63% of Americans support preemptive attack on Iran

Pew Research Center December 3, 2009: "A majority of the public approves of using U.S. military forces in several international situations. More than six-in-ten (63%) approve of using U.S. forces if it were certain Iran had a produced a nuclear weapon while less than a third (30%) disapprove. Opinion among CFR members is nearly the opposite; only 33% approve of using force in this situation while 61% disapprove." These are among the principal findings of America's Place in the World, a survey of foreign policy and national security attitudes conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations. The survey was conducted among 642 members of the Council on Foreign Relations and 2,000 members of the public.

By Steve Rosen  |  December 4, 2009 at 9:53 am  |  Permalink

Olmert Details His Offer to Abbas

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert provided the first detailed account of the offer he made to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on 2008, in an interview with the Australian newspaper published November 28. Here are the key excerpts:

Ehud Olmert still dreams of peace
Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor
The Australian
November 28, 2009

www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ehud-olmert-still-dreams-of-peace/story-e6frg76f-1225804745744

...In Sydney this week, I conducted, perhaps, the longest interview and
discussion Olmert has undertaken with any media since leaving office in
March after more than three years as prime minister...

Olmert's term in office is best remembered for the extensive
negotiations, and final peace offer that he undertook with Abbas.

Olmert explains this position to me in unprecedented detail. His offer to
Abbas represents a historic watershed and poses a serious question. Can the
Palestinian leadership ever accept any offer that an Israeli prime minister
could ever reasonably make?

It is important to get Olmert's full account of this offer on the record:
"From the end of 2006 until the end of 2008 I think I met with Abu Mazen
more often than any Israeli leader has ever met any Arab leader. I met him
more than 35 times. They were intense, serious negotiations." [Note that there was no settlement freeze at the time].

These negotiations took place on two tracks, Olmert says. One was the
meetings with the two leaders and their senior colleagues and aides (among
them Kadima leader Tzipi Livni on Olmert's side). But Olmert would also have
private, one-on-one meetings with Abbas.

"On the 16th of September, 2008, I presented him (Abbas) with a
comprehensive plan. It was based on the following principles.

One, there would be a territorial solution to the conflict on the basis of
the 1967 borders with minor modifications on both sides. Israel will claim
part of the West Bank where there have been demographic changes over the
last 40 years."

This approach by Olmert would have allowed Israel to keep the biggest Jewish
settlement blocks which are mainly now suburbs of Jerusalem, but would
certainly have entailed other settlers having to leave Palestinian territory
and relocate to Israel.

In total, Olmert says, this would have involved Israel claiming about 6.4
per cent of Palestinian territory in the West Bank: "It might be a fraction
more, it might be a fraction less, but in total it would be about 6.4 per
cent. Israel would claim all the Jewish areas of Jerusalem. All the lands
that before 1967 were buffer zones between the two populations would have
been split in half. In return there would be a swap of land (to the
Palestinians) from Israel as it existed before 1967.

"I showed Abu Mazen how this would work to maintain the contiguity of the
Palestinian state. I also proposed a safe passage between the West Bank and
Gaza. It would have been a tunnel fully controlled by the Palestinians but
not under Palestinian sovereignty, otherwise it would have cut the state of
Israel in two.

"No 2 was the issue of Jerusalem. This was a very sensitive, very painful,
soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically, and
emotionally, Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was
ready that the city should be shared. Jewish neighbourhoods would be under
Jewish sovereignty,
Arab neighbourhoods would be under Palestinian sovereignty, so it could be
the capital of a Palestinian state.

"Then there was the question of the holy basin within Jerusalem, the sites
that are holy to Jews and Muslims, but not only to them, to Christians as
well. I would never agree to an exclusive Muslim sovereignty over areas that
are religiously important to Jews and Christians. So there would be an area
of no sovereignty, which would be jointly administered by five nations,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinian state, Israel and the United States.

"Third was the issue of Palestinian refugees." This issue has often been a
seeming deal-breaker. The Palestinians insist that all Palestinians who left
Israel - at or near the time of its founding - and all their spouses and
descendants, should be able to return to live in Israel proper. This could
be more than a million people. Olmert, like other Israeli prime ministers,
could never agree to this: "I think Abu Mazen understood there was no chance
Israel would become the homeland of the
Palestinian people. The Palestinian state was to be the homeland of the
Palestinian people. So the question was how the claimed attachment of the
Palestinian refugees to their original places could be recognised without
bringing them in. I told him I would never agree to a right of return.
Instead, we would agree on a humanitarian basis to accept a certain number
every year for five years, on the basis that this would be the end of
conflict and the end of claims. I said to him 1000 per year. I think the
Americans were entirely with me.

"In addition, we talked about creating an international fund that would
compensate Palestinians for their suffering. I was the first Israeli prime
minister to speak of Palestinian suffering and to say that we are not
indifferent to that suffering.

"And four, there were security issues." Olmert says he showed Abbas a map,
which embodied all these plans. Abbas wanted to take the map away. Olmert
agreed, so long as they both signed the map. It was, from Olmert's point of
view, a final offer, not a basis for future negotiation. But Abbas could not
commit. Instead, he said he would come with experts the next day.

"He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next
day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman
today, let's make it next week. I never saw him again."

Olmert believes that, like Camp David a decade earlier, this was an enormous
opportunity lost: "I said 'this is the offer. Sign it and we can immediately
get support from America, from Europe, from all over the world'. I told him
(Abbas) he'd never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for
50 years. I said to him, 'do you want to keep floating forever - like an
astronaut in space - or do you want a state?'

"To this day we should ask Abu Mazen to respond to this plan. If they (the
Palestinians) say no, there's no point negotiating."
...

By Steve Rosen  |  December 1, 2009 at 5:09 pm  |  Permalink