Author

Martin S. Indyk

Executive Vice President, The Brookings Institution

Martin_Indyk

Any such American strategy needs to take account of the way that, in the Middle East, everything is connected. Push back on Iran in Yemen, and they might well stir up the Shiite population in Bahrain. Push back on Iran in Syria, and they might well use the Shiite militias in Iraq to undermine our effort to eliminate ISIS there, or encourage Hamas to launch rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

A comprehensive strategy would need to contain at least six elements:

1Rigorous enforcement of the Iran nuclear deal. Whatever the perceived shortcomings of the JCPOA, it has succeeded in creating a vital 10-year window in which the region is not threatened by Iranian nuclear capabilities and the nuclear arms race that they would inevitably trigger. Nothing is easy about countering Iran in the conflict-ridden Middle East, but everything becomes easier if we do not have an Iranian nuclear threat to contend with at the same time. As long as the Iranians strictly adhere to the agreement, the United States and its regional allies will have gained vital time to develop and implement the other elements of the push-back strategy.

2Support for the Iraqi governmentof Haider al-Abadi and the Iraqi Armed Forces as they campaign to defeat ISIS and regain control of Mosul and the Sunni regions of Iraq. Eliminating Iran’s influence in Iraq is not an achievable or necessary objective given the historic and religious ties between the neighboring Shiites of Iraq and Iran. But providing an effective counter-balance to Iran’s influence in Baghdad is eminently achievable since it is welcomed by the current Iraqi government, which was not the case with the previous Maliki government.

While Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states have long been unwilling to engage meaningfully with the Iraqi government, the recent visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister to Baghdad—and the Saudi effort to engage with the Sunni tribes of Iraq—presages a new approach which needs to be encouraged and sustained. The elimination of ISIS will generate a huge post-conflict reconstruction challenge in Mosul and the other liberated Sunni cities and towns. It will be particularly important to have Sunni state support for a major post-war reconstruction effort led by the Abadi government and reinforced by the United States. It is essential that Iranian-directed Shiite militias not be allowed to fill the vacuum and in the process establish a land bridge between Iran and Syria across northern Iraq.

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3Promotion of a political resolution of the civil war in Yemen. The Trump administration is currently considering stepping up military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their two-year long military campaign in Yemen. This makes sense only if it is wedded to a diplomatic strategy for ending the war, which has already caused thousands of civilian casualties and vast human suffering. Otherwise, the United States will be sucked into the Yemen quagmire like so many outside powers before us.

Gains on the battlefield should impact the dynamics at the negotiating table. In that regard, a successful effort to take control of the Red Sea port of Hodeida could impact the Houthi calculus and lead to greater seriousness and reasonableness on their part in the negotiations. But American support needs to be conditioned on the pursuit of a political solution by our Saudi allies as well.

4Reduce Iran’s influence in Syria. This will be difficult and complicated, and implementing it is not helped by loose talk about the unrealistic objective of “pushing Iran out of Syria.” We need to recognize that neither we, nor the Russians, have the will or capacity to achieve that goal—as desirable as it might be—in current circumstances.

Iran has developed a formidable presence on the ground in Syria: the Iranians have penetrated the remaining governing institutions of Asad’s regime, and have embedded some 30,000 forces in the government-controlled areas of western Syria (some 5,000 IRGC, Basij, and Iranian Army elements; some 3,000 to 5,000 highly trained Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon; and some 20,000 Shiite militiamen recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan). These forces are significantly larger than what is left of the Syrian army or the Russian forces now deployed there.

The Iranian-controlled presence is bolstered by two key factors:

• The Iranian-Assad alliance,which was forged by Assad’s father in the 1980s. Since then, Assad’s son has become ever-more dependent on Tehran for his survival. Accordingly Assad will not dare demand Iran’s departure. Nor will Russia, since its primary interest is the survival of the regime.
• Iran’s “core interest” in retaining a foothold in Syria because it is the lynchpin of its wider hegemonic strategy. If it loses that foothold, it will seriously jeopardize Hezbollah’s control of Lebanon, the crown jewel of Iran’s regional strategy. That means Iran will mightily resist any effort to force it out of Syria and has considerable ability to do so.

Russia and Iran both seek to keep the Assad regime in power. But they are also rivals for influence in Damascus, and Assad relishes the opportunity to play them off against each other. Exploiting that rivalry has advantages for an American strategy of reducing Iranian influence in Syria. However, that game has strict upper limits. Russia will not cooperate in the undermining of its own influence in Syria for the sake of a partnership with the United States. The idea that Russia will force Iran out of Syria is therefore a dangerous fantasy. And the idea that we should pay for such a fantasy by removing the Ukraine sanctions on Russia would constitute strategic malfeasance, given the impact that would have on our allies in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe.

We should therefore set more modest objectives. We should, for example, press Russia to deny Iran port facilities in Syria. An Iranian-controlled port would enable Iran more easily to ship weapons to Hezbollah, exacerbating the conflict between Iran and Israel—something Russia has an interest in avoiding. Similarly, we should support Israel’s insistence that Russia press Iran and Hezbollah not to send their forces south to the Golan Heights.

Finally, as in Yemen, we should do what we can to promote a political resolution of the Syrian civil war, one that leads eventually but inevitably to Assad’s departure. One requirement of the political settlement should be the departure of all foreign forces. That principle was incorporated into the Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese civil war and eventually resulted in the peaceful departure of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Syrians, who do not want Iranian-controlled Shiite militias dominating them in a post-conflict era, will welcome inclusion of that principle. And it will provide us with the legitimacy to demand their eventual departure.

5Concert the capabilities of our regional allies in a regional security framework that can sustain a long-term, burden-sharing effort. The United States is fortunate to have capable regional strategic partners in Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Sunni Arab states that share a common interest in countering Iran’s threatening ambitions. While each has its own strategic perspective, there is a new readiness across the region to work together, with Turkey, the Gulf states, and Egypt all improving cooperation with Israel, for example. It is time to test the readiness of our allies to come together in a regional security arrangement that will allow us all more effectively to coordinate our efforts against Iran.

6Lay the foundations for negotiations with Iran about its ambitions and behavior in the region. The Iran nuclear deal demonstrates that it is possible to reach enforceable agreements with Iran, using sanctions and concerted diplomacy as leverage to achieve our objectives. A newly-proposed U.S. sanctions bill—complemented by the effective implementation of the five other elements of the push-back strategy—provides a basis for engaging Iran in a negotiation that focuses on:

• Iran’s efforts to export its revolution and interfere in the domestic affairs of Arab states across the region;
• Iran’s destabilizing regional activities and its sponsorship of terrorism; and
• Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program and its nuclear activities after the expiration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Negotiations are not a concession to Iran, nor a sign of weakness, as long as they are backed by sanctions and the other elements of the strategy, and as long as they are fully coordinated with our regional allies. But they represent a way to signal to Iran that the United States and its regional allies are willing to have a constructive, normalized relationship with it, even to recognize its status as a regional power, if it is willing to change its troubling behavior in fundamental ways. Indeed, if the Iranians prove willing to engage in a serious negotiation about these issues, we should also be prepared to signal a willingness to lift all our bilateral sanctions—i.e. putting a carrot as well as a stick on the table.

Countering Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions is a deadly serious business. In pursuing this objective, we should be careful about making threats unless we are prepared to back them up, and we should be wary of declaring objectives that we have neither the will nor interest to achieve. Above all, we should be mindful of the logical consequences of our strategy and think those through before launching on a course that could well have the opposite effect of what we intended. None of those cautions, however, should deter the United States from taking up the challenge while we have the opportunity to do so.

      

 

 

…develop and submit to the appropriate Congressional committees a strategy for deterring conventional and asymmetric Iranian activities and threats that directly threaten the United States and key allies in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond.

While the legislation imposes sanctions designed to address the threat posed by Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, it clearly seeks to embed that effort in a broader approach that contends with Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East.  Developing that strategy is an urgent priority because Iran’s hegemonic ambitions threaten the interests of the United States and its Middle Eastern allies. Through the sponsorship of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Palestine Islamic Jihad, the control of Shia militias like the Badr Brigade in Iraq and the Liwa Fatemayoun in Syria (whose troops come from Afghanistan), the deployment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods force, and the provision of missiles and other arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen and other proxies across the region, Iran has gone a long way to achieving its regional ambitions.  It has established an “arc of influence” that stretches from Lebanon on the Mediterranean Sea, across Syria in the Middle East heartland, to Iraq and Bahrain on the Gulf, and to Yemen on the Red Sea.

Iran has been assiduously pursuing this effort since the overthrow of the Shah almost four decades ago when it began its unceasing efforts to export its revolution to the Middle East and beyond.  In the 1990s, for example, when I had responsibility for Iran policy in the Clinton Administration, we pursued a strategy of containment to deal with the threat that was already manifest.  That was part of a two-branch strategy, in which President Clinton sought to advance a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace as the second branch.  The calculation in those days was that the more progress we made in peacemaking, the more effective we would be in containing the Iranian revolution, and the more effectively we isolated Iran, the more progress we would be able to make in advancing peace.

The Iranians, who live in a strategic environment and have practiced the art of strategy since the days of Cyrus the Great, 600 years before the birth of Christ, were successful in countering our approach by systematically undermining our efforts to advance Arab-Israeli peace, using their proxies, Hezbollah, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. Had we succeeded in achieving a breakthrough to peace between Israel and Syria in those days, which was actually much closer than the Israeli-Palestinian deal we were also pursuing, the Iranians would have suffered a strategic setback that might well have changed the course of Middle Eastern history.

But that is conjecture.  What is not conjecture is the fact that Syria remains the lynchpin of Iran’s strategy for dominating the Middle East heartland.  Therefore, any new American strategy to counter Iran’s threats needs to take account of the way that, in the Middle East, everything is connected.  Push back on Iran in Yemen, and they might well stir up the Shia population in Bahrain.  Push back on Iran in Syria, and they might well use the Shia militias in Iraq to undermine our effort to eliminate ISIS there, or encourage Hamas to launch rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

Back in 1996, when the Iranians thought we were making progress in brokering peace between Israel and Syria, they ordered Hezbollah to launch a terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers in Dahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel.  They are quite capable of repeating that exercise today against American troops in Syria or Iraq.  As Senator Cotton knows, since he asked the question of General Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in his confirmation hearings in 2015, the Iranians may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 500 American soldiers in Iraq during the Surge, by supplying explosively formed penetrators (EFPs)to Shia militias.¹

In short, countering Iran’s regional ambitions is deadly business and we should approach it with the seriousness it deserves.  What we need is a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable “push-back” strategy.  But in pursuing it, we should be careful about making threats unless we are prepared to back them up, and we should be wary of declaring objectives that we have neither the will nor capacity to achieve.  Above all, we should be mindful of the logical consequences of our strategy and think those through before launching on a course that could well have the opposite effect of what we intended.  For all these reasons, I applaud the sponsors of the bill and the members of this committee for seeking to deliberate on these weighty matters.

The rigorous enforcement of the Iran nuclear deal is the first element in a push-back strategy.  That will likely be unwelcome to some members of this committee, but in my view, it is essential to its success.  Whatever the perceived shortcomings of the JCPOA, it has succeeded in creating a vital ten-year window in which the region is not threatened by Iranian nuclear capabilities and the nuclear arms race that they would inevitably trigger.  Nothing is easy about countering Iran in the conflict-ridden Middle East, but everything becomes easier if we do not have an Iranian nuclear threat to contend with at the same time.

As long as the Iranians strictly adhere to the agreement, the United States and its regional allies will have gained vital time to develop and implement the other elements of the push-back strategy.  That time is essential because the Iranians have entrenched themselves across the region.  They will not easily or quickly be extracted, if at all.  We will have to be prepared to play a long game and the JCPOA makes that possible.

The second element in the push-back strategy is support for the Iraqi government of Haider al-Abadi and the Iraqi Armed Forces as they campaign to defeat ISIS and regain control of Mosul and the Sunni regions of Iraq.  Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein opened the gates of Babylon to Iran, Iraq’s Shia majority has fallen under the heavy influence of Iran.  Eliminating that influence is not an achievable or necessary objective given the historic and religious ties between the neighboring Shias of Iraq and Iran.  But providing an effective counter-balance to Iran’s influence in Baghdad is eminently achievable since it is welcomed by the current Iraqi government, which was not the case under the previous Maliki government.

For years, that effort has also been hobbled by the unwillingness of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states to engage meaningfully with the Iraqi government, which they branded as “Persian.” But the recent visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister to Baghdad, and the Saudi effort to engage with the Sunni tribes of Iraq, presages a new approach which needs to be encouraged and sustained.

This will be particularly important, as the elimination of ISIS in Iraq will generate a huge post-conflict reconstruction challenge in Mosul and the other liberated Sunni regions.  If Iranian-directed Shia militias fill the vacuum created by the defeat of ISIS, Iran will have achieved one critically important step in establishing a land bridge from Iran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. It will also have created the conditions for the eventual return of Sunni jihadist groups like ISIS and its Al Qaeda precursor, perhaps in an even more extreme form, because the Sunnis of Iraq will not accept Shia dominance of their lives. That is why Sunni state support for a major American-led, post-war reconstruction effort is essential.

The third element in the push-back strategy is effective promotion of a political resolution of the civil war in Yemen. The Trump Administration is currently considering stepping up military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their two-year long military campaign in Yemen.² This makes sense only if it is wedded to a diplomatic strategy for ending the war, which has already caused thousands of civilian casualties and vast human suffering.  Otherwise, the United States will be sucked into the Yemen quagmire like so many outside powers before us.

Greater U.S. military engagement also needs to be weighed in the context of the larger regional strategy that this Committee is calling for.  Yemen is a low-cost way for Iran to distract the United States and its Gulf Arab allies from the much more strategically consequential challenges in Iraq and Syria. Already, some 50 percent of Saudi Arabia’s military capacity, and a large part of the UAE’s, is devoted to the Yemen conflict, whereas all that Iran is doing to tie them down is to supply the Houthis with military materiel and financial support.

No doubt, gains on the battlefield can impact the dynamics at the negotiating table.  In that regard, a successful effort to take control of the Red Sea port of Hodeida, could impact the Houthi calculus and lead to greater seriousness and reasonableness on their part in the negotiations.  But American support needs to be conditioned on the pursuit of a political solution by our Saudi allies as well.

The fourth element in the push-back strategy is to reduce Iran’s influence in Syria.  This is by far the most difficult and complicated component of the strategy.  Developing and implementing it is not helped by loose talk about the unrealistic objective of “pushing Iran out of Syria.” That may well be the desirable end-state but we need to recognize that neither we, nor the Russians, have the will or capacity to achieve it in current circumstances.

Iran has developed a formidable presence on the ground in Syria.  With encouragement from Asad’s Alawite-dominated regime, the Iranians have penetrated the institutions of government that remain in Syria.  They have also embedded some 25,000 forces in the government-controlled areas of western Syria.  Those forces comprise some 5,000 IRGC, Basij and Iranian Army elements that provide the commanders, advisors and trainers of the larger Shia militias; some 3-5,000 highly trained Hizbollah fighters from Lebanon; and some 20,000 Shia militiamen recruited from Afghanistan and Pakistan. These forces are significantly larger than what is left of the Syrian army or the Russian forces now deployed there.  They were responsible for the Asad regime’s reconquering of Aleppo and they remain in control of much of the areas in the north-west where they are taking responsibility for the well-being of Syrian citizens there, much as Hezbollah did in southern Lebanon.

The Iranian-controlled presence is bolstered by two factors that must not be ignored in developing the push-back strategy:

• The Iranian-Asad alliance, which was forged by Asad’s father in the 1980s, when Syria was the only Arab state to side with Iran in the decade-long Iraq-Iran war. Since then, Asad’s son has become ever-more dependent on them for his survival, no more so than in the present. Asad will not demand their departure because it will lead to his demise. And Russia will therefore not demand it either because they fear the consequences of the collapse of the Asad regime more than they value any putative partnership with the United States.
• Iran’s “core interest” in retaining a foothold in Syria because it is the lynchpin of its wider hegemonic strategy. If it loses that foothold, it will seriously jeopardize Hezbollah’s control of Lebanon, the crown jewel of Iran’s regional position. That means Iran will mightily resist any effort to force it out of Syria and has considerable ability to do so.  The United States has never viewed Syria as a core or vital interest and we therefore do not have the will or interest in deploying the forces necessary to achieve that objective.

Russia does have a long-standing strategic interest in Syria because of its port facilities for the Russian navy and its role as a platform for the projection of Russian influence across the region.  Russian and Iranian interests overlap in Syria in their common objective of maintaining the Asad regime in power. But they are also rivals for influence in Damascus, and Asad relishes the opportunity to play them off against each other. Exploiting that rivalry has advantages for an American strategy of reducing Iranian influence in Syria.  However, that game has strict upper limits.  Russia will not cooperate in the undermining of its own influence in Syria for the sake of a partnership with the United States.  It did that in the 1970s, which led to the loss of its presence in Egypt. It will not repeat that mistake. The idea that Russia will force Iran out of Syria is therefore a dangerous fantasy. And the idea that we should pay for such a fantasy by removing the Ukraine sanctions on Russia would constitute strategic malfeasance, given the impact that would have on our allies in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe.

We should therefore set more modest objectives.  We can, for example, press Russia to deny Iran port facilities in Syria. An Iranian-controlled port would enable Iran more easily to ship weapons to Hezbollah.  That would severely exacerbate the conflict between Iran and Israel, something Russia has an interest in avoiding.  Similarly, we should support Israel’s insistence that Russia press Iran and Hezbollah not to send their forces south to the Golan Heights.  That would risk creating one front across southern Lebanon into the Syrian Golan, which would constitute a highly destabilizing threat to our Israeli ally.

Finally, as in Yemen, we should do what we can to promote a political resolution of the Syrian civil war, one that leads eventually but inevitably to Asad’s departure.  In that context, we should insist that one requirement of the political settlement should be the departure of all foreign forces.  That principle was incorporated into the Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese civil war and eventually resulted in the peaceful departure of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Syrians, who do not want Iranian-controlled militias dominating them in a post-conflict era, will welcome inclusion of that principle.  And it will provide us with the legitimacy to demand their eventual departure.

The fifth element in the push-back strategy it to concert the capabilities of our regional allies in a regional security framework that can sustain a long-term, burden-sharing effort.  The United States is fortunate to have capable regional strategic partners in Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab states, that share a common interest in countering Iran’s threatening ambitions. Each, however, has its own strategic perspective.  Our NATO ally Turkey, for example, has a strong interest in preventing Iran from establishing a land bridge across northern Iraq to Syria and has moved ground forces into Iraq to block that prospect. But it will not cooperate in any effort that strengthens the Syrian Kurds.  Similarly, Egypt sees Iran as a regional competitor but does not want to exacerbate the Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict for fear that it will advantage Sunni extremists. An effective strategy will therefore need to be based on a variable geometry that builds on the common interest of countering Iran while allowing for specific differences that may condition the involvement of some of our regional partners.

Nevertheless, there is a new readiness across the region to work together, despite their differences.  For example, Turkey has just normalized relations with Israel; the Gulf States are developing their security relations with Israel; and Egypt’s security cooperation with Israel is unprecedented.  It is time to test the readiness of our allies to come together in a regional security arrangement that will allow us all more effectively to coordinate our efforts against Iran.

The sixth element of the push-back strategy is to lay the foundations for negotiations with Iran about its ambitions and behavior in the region.  The Iran nuclear deal, notwithstanding its shortcomings, demonstrates that it is possible to reach enforceable agreements with Iran, using sanctions and concerted diplomacy as leverage to achieve our objectives.  This sanctions bill, complemented by the five other elements of the push-back strategy, if successfully developed and implemented, provide a basis for engaging Iran in a negotiation that focuses on:

• Iran’s efforts to export its revolution and interfere in the domestic affairs of Arab states across the region
• Iran’s destabilizing regional activities and its sponsorship of terrorism
• Iran’s ICBM program and its nuclear activities after the expiration of the JCPOA.

Negotiations are not a concession to Iran, nor a sign of weakness, as long as they are backed by sanctions and the other elements of the strategy that I have outlined here, and as long as they are fully coordinated with our regional allies.  But they represent a way to signal to Iran that we and our regional allies are willing to have a constructive, normalized relationship with it, even recognize its status as a regional power, if it is willing to change its troubling behavior in fundamental ways.  Indeed, if the Iranians prove willing to engage in a serious negotiation about these issues, we should even be prepared to signal to them a willingness to consider lifting our bilateral sanctions, i.e. putting a carrot as well as a stick on the table.

Mr. Chairman, it should be clear from this testimony that developing an effective strategy for dealing with the threats posed by Iran is a complicated and difficult challenge.  But the dangers of not doing so are clear and present.  I applaud the committee for taking on the task.

      

 

 

Experts reflected upon Rabin’s relationships with global leaders, including President Bill Clinton; his efforts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace; and the ramifications of his tragic assassination on the peace process. As a close aide to Prime Minister Rabin, Ambassador Rabinovich offered original research and new insights into the life and legacy of this revered warrior-statesman.

The program began with featured remarks by President Bill Clinton. Afterwards, Brookings Executive Vice President Martin Indyk moderated a conversation between Ambassador Rabinovich and Dalia Rabin, the late Prime Minister Rabin’s daughter and former Member of Knesset.

      

 

 

This multi-year initiative joined Brookings’s Martin Indyk, Bruce Jones, Robert Kagan, and Thomas Wright with Derek Chollet (German Marshall Fund of the United States), Eric Edelman (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments), Michèle Flournoy (Center for New American Security), Stephen Hadley (United States Institute of Peace), Kristen Silverberg (former U.S. ambassador to the EU), and Jake Sullivan (Yale Law School). Brookings’s Order from Chaos project is designed to provide analysis and policy recommendations for defending and reforming the international order for the 21st century.

During the event, a selection of report authors discussed the shifting geopolitical landscape and expanded on their innovative strategies for confronting challenges to the postwar international order.

      

 

 

World politics took a sharp turn for the worse over the past five years as two decades of great power cooperation gave way to a new era of geopolitical competition. To succeed in the coming decades, the United States needs a strategy that begins with the setting of a clear goal: the renovation and reinvigoration of the postwar international order. We believe that President Donald Trump should take a leaf from President Harry Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who argued that the United States should build “situations of strength” around the world with like-minded nations and work with them to tackle the threats and challenges to U.S. interests.

We are in the early years of the third phase of the U.S.-led international order. The first phase lasted the duration of the Cold War from 1945 to 1989 and was defined by U.S.-Soviet rivalry. The second phase was the roughly twenty-year period after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and was characterized by relative cooperation among the world’s major powers and transnational threats. The third phase is marked by four trends.

1. The world is becoming more geopolitically competitive with great power challenges to U.S. leadership in East Asia and Europe.
2. Chaos in the Middle East is highly infectious and spreading disorder in the region and beyond.
3. Technology is having an increasingly disruptive effect.
4. Western dissatisfaction with the status quo has sapped the appetite for internationalism in the United States and Europe.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the positive elements of international order were mutually reinforcing. Now, they have gone into reverse and contribute to instability and disorder. This is a very different world than the one that presidents inherited in 1993, 2001, or 2009.

In a more geopolitically competitive world, the intentions and ambitions of other countries are particularly important.

Vladimir Putin’s vision of international order is fundamentally at odds with the interests of the United States. Putin believes that the U.S.-led postwar order weakens his hold on power and denies Russia the regional and global influence it deserves. He has made it his mission to weaken this order. Putin would replace it with spheres of influence in which major powers are preeminent in their respective regions and they all have a roughly equal say on matters of global importance. Russia will act unilaterally to defend its interests and to gain leverage over the West, including by means of military intervention; active measures against Western democracies; greater reliance on Russia’s nuclear arsenal; and cyber-warfare.

The Chinese leadership has a more complex and multi-faceted view of the international order than Putin, largely because it benefits from the international economic order. However, China is seeking preeminence in East Asia and a weakening of the U.S. alliance system, and it is employing gradualist tactics to unilaterally change the status quo, particularly in the maritime domain. If China succeeds, it would likely dramatically weaken the rules-based character of the international order, undermine the U.S. position globally, and ensure that the geopolitics of East Asia is inherently unstable.

Most other nations define their interests in a way that is more compatible with the traditional U.S. vision than with Russia or China. While many nations have issues or problems with U.S. foreign policy, there is little desire to overturn the existing international order or for reducing America’s global role.

Beset by crises, America’s European allies have become more inwardly focused but they remain committed to the postwar order and are supportive of U.S. leadership. America’s East Asian allies and partners presently all want greater U.S. engagement but they are very reluctant to be drawn into an endeavor that could be seen as containing or confronting China. America’s Middle Eastern allies—Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates—all want greater U.S. engagement in the their region. The emerging powers—India, Brazil, Indonesia, and others—want a global order that is more inclusive and less Western.

The United States must adjust its strategy to account for the fact that the world is more geopolitically competitive, that the Middle East regional order is collapsing, and that many citizens—in the United States and overseas—question whether an open global economy can ever deliver on its promise. The Trump administration should continue to define U.S. interests broadly and it should seek to renovate and reform the postwar international order.
America’s most pressing challenge is to devise a set of integrated regional strategies, which must be guided by eight principles:

1. Understand the competitive nature of the challenge.
2. Restore trust with allies.
3. Deter revisionism that threatens the international order.
4. Distinguish between revisionism and legitimate aspirations.
5. Create and deploy leverage in U.S. diplomacy.
6. Deal with the most imminent direct threats to America: Islamist terrorism, North Korea.
7. Develop strategies that are resilient against uncertainty and share a common purpose.
8. Recognize that climate change is a geopolitical issue.

One of the U.S. administration’s strategic objectives must be to create a new and favorable equilibrium across all these regions and domains. This will, by necessity, require an assertive and unyielding posture in some areas along with a prudent recognition that, at times, adjustments and compromises need to be made. This begs the question, how much should the Trump administration hold the line, how much should it change the existing order, and how much should it accommodate dissatisfied powers?

The United States should adopt an uncompromising position on any issue or dispute in which a rival power uses force, the threat of force, or roughly equivalent means of coercion (cyberattacks, covert operations, political subversion) to undermine, coerce, or invade its neighbors. The United States will not be able to stop every act of aggression by a rival power, but it can significantly raise the costs of such aggression and frustrate whatever strategic goal the aggression was intended to achieve. America must not send the message that the future will be shaped by those countries who can muster the will and military might to challenge the international order.

The United States should take a more flexible approach to issues or disputes where force and coercion are taken off the table. If other countries want to change the system by persuading other nations and people that it is not in their interests, then they are free to do so. The United States should make its case as powerfully as possible, but it must accept and respect the right of others to advocate for change. In those cases, the United States should ask if there is a way to accommodate their demands while maintaining the core principles and benefits of the international order.

Europe

A strong and prosperous Europe that supports and strengthens a renovated and revitalized international order is in America’s immediate and long-term interests. The United States should reaffirm its commitment to NATO and its support for the European Union. It should support completing integration in those areas, primarily economic, where the EU remains exposed to external crises. The United States also has an interest in Brexit negotiations producing a strong and successful independent Britain engaging constructively with a strong and successful European Union. The United States should seek to revitalize transatlantic trade by negotiating an economic agreement with the EU that addresses some of the real shared concerns about the global economy, including cybersecurity, lessons learned from sanction regimes, resisting state-sponsored distortions to the market, and energy issues.

In Europe, the United States must block and deter Russian aggression wherever it violates the principles of the international order and thereby impinges on our interests and those of our friends and allies. Once deterrence has been reestablished and the parameters of a new equilibrium are clear, the United States should be willing to negotiate a modus vivendi with Moscow that respects Russia’s interests and those of the United States and our European allies
and partners consistent with the principles of the international order.

Asia-Pacific

The foundations of U.S. strategy in Asia historically have been alliances and a forward U.S. military presence, free trade, open institutions, and support for democracy. This strategy is now principally challenged by China’s assertiveness and revisionism. To preserve the international order in East Asia, the United States must prevent China from establishing control over an expanded sphere of influence in the Western Pacific. However, the United States must also make it clear that China has a hugely important role to play in our vision of regional order in East Asia. It can play this role in the institutional structure of the region and its many multilateral forums, some of which will require reform. The United States can also work with China as it increases its
engagement to its west, particularly through initiatives like “One Belt, One Road.”

The United States must also comprehensively engage its allies—economically as well as in the security realm—and deepen its ties with India. The United States must also enhance deterrence against a gathering threat from North Korea and develop options to prevent it from acquiring a ballistic missile capability that can threaten the American homeland.

Middle East

In the Middle East, America’s first goal must be to restore stability in the region through increasing engagement with our traditional friends and allies and restoring trust where necessary. The United States should prioritize economic reform and modernization to create the conditions for progress in the Arab world. The United States must balance Iran and deter it from aggressive actions that threaten stability, international order, and our vital interests or those of our allies. The goal of this balancing should be to change Iranian behavior, which would allow for engagement on regional security issues. The Trump administration needs to ensure that the nuclear agreement with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—is strictly enforced and that the Iranian leadership understands that the international community will never accept an Iran with a nuclear weapons capability. In Syria and Iraq, the Trump administration should pursue the defeat of ISIS to the end but it must also prepare for the day after. In Syria, that means increasing U.S. leverage vis-à-vis Russia and Bashar al-Assad, and takings steps to prevent Iran from emerging as the big winner from the war. In Iraq, the Sunni communities in liberated areas will need to be protected by the Iraqi government and more equitable power-sharing arrangements and revenue distributions will need to be promoted.

The United States must implement this strategy using its military, diplomatic, and economic power. Specific steps include the following:

Military Power

• Preserve a preponderance of power and America’s military edge.
• End the 2011 Budget Control Act caps and the threat of sequestration.
• Strengthen and modernize U.S. alliance capacity.
• Update deterrence by enhancing the credibility of existing U.S. security commitments and developing proportionate responses to aggression against non-allied governments.
• Inch toward a cyber equilibrium by building credible expectations among allies, rivals, and non-state actors as to U.S. offensive and defensive capacity, and the magnitude of an American retaliatory action for certain offenses.
• Modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal and supporting nuclear infrastructure and reassure our allies of the continued U.S. commitment to extended deterrence.

Diplomatic Power

• Build “situations of strength” with allies and partners before negotiating with rivals.
• Reaffirm U.S. interests and commitments, particularly to allies and partners.
• Embrace both new and old multilateral platforms for shared problems.
• Gain support of allies for coercive diplomacy.
• Maintain values of democracy and human rights in U.S. diplomacy.

Economic Power

• Expect and prepare for a new international financial crisis.
• Recognize that a strong national economy requires a strong global economy.
• Make economic diplomacy more ambitious by tackling the numerous fault-lines and problems in the global economy that directly and detrimentally impact the United States and American workers.
• Leverage economic power responsibly by using sanctions in response to exceptional acts of aggression or illegality, by seeking multilateral support, and by keeping in mind the U.S. interest in an open global economy.
• Make economic decisions that take into account the necessity of maintaining America’s competitive advantage and national security needs in the coming decades.

      

 

 

Kushner will have a real challenge when it comes to being effective especially because the objective circumstances for Israeli and Palestinian peacemaking are very, very dismal.

THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Because Kushner is seen as President Trump’s trusted confidant, the whole region will understand that he speaks for the president.
• Both Arab and Israeli leadership could take advantage of Kushner’s lack of experience in Middle East policy by employing tactics that will make it extremely difficult for him to move forward with a deal.
• The dismal circumstance surrounding Israeli and Palestinian peacemaking and failures on both sides to fulfill their commitments to the two state solution will also make it challenging for Kushner to be effective.
• There are three ways President Trump, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas could help pave the way for a negotiated agreement:
• Settlement activity would need to be constrained.
• The Israeli government could help the Palestinian economy grow in the West Bank by enabling construction and development in areas that have been off-limits for the Palestinians.
• The Sunni Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (the “Arab quartet”) – could be encouraged to join the process to provide cover and support for Palestinian concessions.
• These efforts might bear fruit because these four Arab states and Israel share a common interest in combating the threat from Iran’s hegemonic aspirations in their part of the Middle East.

THE SOURCES

How a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem could actually jump-start the peace process

President Trump’s options for Israeli-Palestinian dealmaking

      

 

 

“Netanyahu in particular wanted to concert strategy not just to push back on Iran in the region, but also to deal with that problematic nuclear deal.”

THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with President Trump at first appeared as though it would be a great success, but two recent complications could cause disruption:

First, General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, resigned from his position two days before the meeting.

Flynn was Netanyahu’s natural partner in his campaign against Iran. General Flynn had already taken steps to “put Iran on notice.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to coordinate strategies on pushing back against Iran in the region, along with ways to address the Iran nuclear deal. That will be less possible with Flynn gone.

The second point of controversy surrounds President Trump’s public objection to recent Israeli settlement activity and his decision to appoint David Friedman as his ambassador to Israel.

The Friedman pick sent a green light to Netanyahu’s coalition partners to accelerate settlement activity and push for annexation of West Bank territory.

Instead of pushing back on Iran, President Trump pushed back on this settlement activity, declaring that he wanted to make peace Israeli-Palestinian peace and judging Israeli settlement activity unhelpful in that context.

After facing similar opposition from President Barack Obama for the past eight years, Netanyahu now must work with another U.S. President who wants to establish peace without settlements expansion.

THE SOURCES

How a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem could actually jump-start the peace process

President Trump’s options for Israeli-Palestinian dealmaking

      

 

 

The Moving to Access initiative, a collaboration between Brookings’s Metropolitan Policy Program and Global Economy and Development program, is an extensive, multi-year effort that seeks to inform and promote an access-first approach to urban transportation policy, planning, investment, and services. This event on January 11 brought together experts across three major disciplines—transportation, urban planning, and finance—and explored where these disciplines agree, where they diverge, and what policies could support a more accessible built environment. The event featured a panel discussion with current metropolitan leaders and distinguished scholars and closed with a keynote dialogue with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx.

      

 

 

Previous administrations have left negotiations over the status of Jerusalem to last because of their complexity and sensitivity. But if the disruption-oriented Trump administration is intent on moving the embassy, it could try to use the move to jump-start the moribund peace process. Although the status of Jerusalem is a deeply thorny issue, a rational compromise is imaginable: the undivided city could become the shared capital of the Israeli state and its Palestinian counterpart, with the Jewish and Arab suburbs under the sovereignty of their respective state. Jerusalem’s Old City could be governed by a special administration that ensures religious authorities continue to oversee their respective holy sites.

Previous U.S. presidents have supported this framework, but the parties themselves have rejected it. Perhaps Trump’s embassy decision could be used to inject some urgency back into the process with the ultimate objective of establishing two embassies in Jerusalem, one for Israel on the west side and one for Palestine in the east. Importantly, though, it would be crucial to accompany such a decision with a simultaneous effort (one that includes regional actors like Egypt and Jordan) to jump-start peace talks on Jerusalem first—otherwise the move would simply risk inciting a new explosion of anger among the Palestinians, their Arab allies, and Islamic extremists across the region.