Brookings: Experts - Martin S. Indyk

Bending History: : Barack Obama's Foreign Policy (Revised Edition)

Martin S. Indyk, Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Michael E. O'Hanlon — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 342pp.

How well has Barack Obama carried out his duties as U.S. commander-in-chief, top diplomat, and grand strategist? He has been unable to change the climate of Washington, and economic difficulties have dominated the first two years of his presidency. But his larger success or failure will likely hinge as much on foreign policy. In this revised edition of Bending History (with a new preface), a trio of renowned foreign policy experts illuminates the grand promise and the great contradictions of a new president who has captured the attention and imagination of citizens around the world unlike few of his White House predecessors.

Conflicting caricatures of Obama miss the mark. The Right largely believes he is a naïve apologist trying to quash "American exceptionalism," or at best trying too hard to meet the demands of his Democratic Party. Conversely, while many on the Left still see him as a transformational political figure, the great antidote to George Bush's unilateralist militarism, others believe he is an accommodationist who lacks the nerve to end the excesses of Bush antiterror policies. Not surprisingly, Obama is substantially more complicated and nuanced than any of these images allows.

Bending History argues that Obama thus far has, above all, been a foreign policy pragmatist, tackling one issue at a time in a thoughtful way. On balance he has been competent and solid, choosing reasonable policies (or least-worst options, at least) with an approach typified by thoroughness, reasonably good teamwork, and flexibility when needed.

The seasoned authors aim to present the first serious book-length appraisal of Obama’s foreign policy. They are Martin Indyk, a diplomat with great experience in the volatile region that has seen almost unimaginable political change in 2011 (the Middle East); Kenneth Lieberthal, an oft-quoted authority on the historic rise and political economy of China; and Michael O'Hanlon, an accomplished analyst of national security policy, particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With fairness and sophistication, the authors blend their own expertise with access to major military and diplomatic players at top levels of the administration. They find little strategic coherence in a foreign policy that is notable mostly for its individual initiatives rather than unifying themes, despite what the persona of Barack Obama himself represents symbolically and rhetorically.

Author Commentary and Media Appearances:

"Obama, Presidential Election, U.S.-China Ties," Kenneth Lieberthal appears on Bloomberg Television, March 20, 2012

"Afghanistan: what 'victory' looks like," by Michael O'Hanlon, The Baltimore Sun, March 20, 2012

"President Barack Obama: a reluctant realist," Michael O'Hanlon appears on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," March 19, 2012

"President Obama: Reluctant Realist," by Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution, March 16, 2012

"Obama as progressive pragmatist," by Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O'Hanlon, POLITICO, March 8, 2012

Praise for Bending History:

"This is an extremely thoughtful and intelligent analysis of the Obama administration's foreign policy—a model of serious research on contemporary foreign affairs. It is the best account of the Obama foreign policy that I have read."—Fareed Zakaria, CNN, host of "Fareed Zakaria GPS"

"This is the single best assessment to date of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Although praising the policy as competent and pragmatic, the authors seek to explain why it has generally failed to live up to the visionary goals of the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. A must read to understand the foreign policy challenges that will face whoever is sworn in as President in January 2013."—Stephen J. Hadley, former U.S. national security adviser

"A perceptive and incisive review of President Obama's foreign policy through the end of 2011, with the successes and failures clearly explained, explored, and exposed. The three authors bring to the volume deep and up-to-date expertise in the fields about which they write, sharing trenchant analysis and conclusions which readers will find new and interesting. An unusual 'group book' which hangs together and presents an integrated picture."—Thomas R. Pickering, former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs

* A Brookings FOCUS Book

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Martin S. Indyk

Kenneth G. Lieberthal

Michael E. O'Hanlon

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American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 14, 2013
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

For the past decade, a debate has raged about the future of American power and foreign policy engagement. In his new book, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2013), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Vali Nasr questions America’s choice to lessen its foreign policy engagement around the world. Nasr argues that after taking office in 2009, the Obama administration let fears of terrorism and political backlash confine its policies to that of the previous administration, instead of seizing the opportunity to fundamentally reshape American foreign policy over the past four years. Meanwhile, China and Russia – rivals to American influence globally – were quietly expanding their influence in places where the U.S. has long held sway. Nasr argues that the Obama administration’s foreign policy decision making could have potentially dangerous outcomes, and, what’s more, sells short America’s power and role in the world.

On May 14, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted Vali Nasr for a discussion on the state of U.S. power globally and whether American foreign policy under the Obama administration is in retreat. Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Kagan joined the discussion, which was moderated by Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy.

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American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

Geopolitics in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Cypriot Perspective

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 9, 2013
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

In recent months, the Republic of Cyprus has been at the center of a number of critical geopolitical developments—holding a largely successful presidency of the European Union (EU), announcing the discovery of large offshore natural gas deposits, and undergoing an economic crisis that led to a bank bailout and raised new uncertainties about the future of the eurozone. The Cypriot government has also announced recently that talks with Turkey could be re-launched in the fall in a new attempt to resolve the political standoff that has divided the country for a generation.

On May 9, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) and the Energy Security Initiative (ESI) hosted the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus Ioannis Kasoulides for a public address. In his remarks, the foreign minister offered his perspectives on a range of issues that are shaping Cyprus’s role in Europe and across the rapidly evolving Eastern Mediterranean region.

Minister Kasoulides previously served as the Cypriot government spokesman from 1993 to 1997. He was first appointed minister of foreign affairs in 1997 and served in that capacity until 2003. During his initial term as foreign minister he led the diplomatic effort that marked the initiation and completion of Cypriot accession negotiations to the EU. From 2004 to 2013 Kasoulides was a member of the European Parliament, where he served as the vice president of the EPP group and head of its foreign affairs working group. He was appointed to a second term as foreign minister in 2013.

Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, offered introductory remarks.

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Israel's Unlikely Peacemaker

Martin S. Indyk — Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Menachem Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister, who died in 1992, was among the legendary Zionist giants who shaped Israel’s destiny and the modern history of the Jewish people. Shimon Peres is the last of that founding generation of Israeli leaders. He will turn 90 later this year. To read a biography of Begin, therefore, is to go back in time and revisit those dramatic events that led to the creation of the Jewish state, its early struggle for survival, its moments of triumph and its growing pains. But it is to see them through the lens of an outsider—a revisionist Zionist ideologue who fought British rule with the tools of terror and Labor Zionist rule with defiance and rhetorical resistance. The outsider who eventually became the insider, Begin presided over Israel’s fate for five tumultuous years, from 1977 to 1983, during which he made peace with Egypt, withdrew from Sinai, won the Nobel Peace Prize, bombed the Osiraq nuclear reactor, and got the Israeli Army stuck in Lebanon on an ill-fated exercise in derring-do that lasted a decade and resulted in the rise of Hezbollah.

Avi Shilon, an Israeli journalist, has done an admirable job tracing the wellsprings of Begin’s complex personality from his early days as a youthful Beitar Commissioner in Poland, touched by Jabotinsky’s ideological zeal but determined to outflank him through advocating for greater militancy, to his rise to the leadership of the Irgun and its revolt against the British Mandate in Palestine, to his many years in the political wilderness as the leader of the right-wing political party Herut, and finally to his ascent to power as head of Likud. As Shilon admits in his conclusion, Begin’s passing from power 20 years ago marked the end of an era of ideological leadership that is unlikely to return to Israel and would be ill-suited to current times if it did. So why bother with a voluminous biography of a former Zionist icon who ended his political life in self-imposed seclusion?

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Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: Moment

Image Source: © NIR ELIAS / Reuters

Obama's Foreign Policy in his Second Term

Martin S. Indyk — Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with ABC Lateline's Tony Jones, Martin Indyk discusses the challenges that President Obama faces in dealing with the chaos in Syria and the rise of Iran. Read an excerpt below.

Tony Jones: Here is our guest, and as I said earlier, Martin Indyk gave a wide-ranging speech at the Lowy Institute today on U.S. President Obama's emerging global strategy and the many challenges he faces.

Second-term presidents look to their legacy, and with the U.S. worn out by failures in the Middle East, the two longest wars in its history, Obama's main game has been the pivot to Asia, in which Australia has a key role to play.

But while pivoting away from the Middle East, the President must still face the rise of Iran and its nuclear weapons program and the prospect that Syria may be degenerating into a failed state. And again, in Syria, the question of weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons in this case, could be the game changer.

So what lies ahead for the U.S. President?

Martin Indyk is the vice president and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He's a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and he joins us now.

Thanks for being here.

Martin Indyk: Nice to see you again, Tony. Thank you.

Jones: Now, you began your speech today by saying that we're in a plastic moment in international affairs. What do you mean by that?

Indyk: Well, there is I think an emerging global order in which rising powers, particularly China and India in this part of the world, are pushing for a role on the international stage and it's a moment in which there's a certain malleability to the shaping of that order in which I think the United States has a critical role to play, just as it did after the Second World War, in supporting a liberal international order, the kind of order that the United States and Australia share in common with so much of the Western world. And that's the challenge for President Obama, because in his next four years, no longer needing to worry about getting re-elected - he cannot run again - he has a chance to bend history in the direction of a more peaceful, more prosperous, more liberal international order.

Jones: Yeah, OK. So you describe Obama's pivot to Asia as the closest thing we may ever see to an Obama Doctrine. It has very big implications for Australia. How radical a shift is it in reality?

Indyk: I think it's more of a recognition that for 10 years, the previous 10 years, the previous decade, the United States has been preoccupied with the war on terrorism and bogged down in these two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and basically has taken its eye off the ball. A lot of other things are going on in other parts of the world, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. And the United States simply wasn't paying attention; it was basically absent from the arena. Now it is paying attention and the President's pivot, as he calls it, to the Asia Pacific region is an indication of a strategic shift because of the recognition of the challenges and opportunities that lie here in this part of the world for the United States.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: ABC Lateline

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Qatar-U.S. Relations in a Changing Middle East

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:30:00 -0400

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April 24, 2013
7:30 PM - 8:00 PM EDT

Washington, DC

Washington, DC

On April 24, during an event honoring His Excellency Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Martin Indyk asked about Qatar's views on the Syrian crisis, the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, and the still unfolding Arab Awakening. The event marked Qatar's ten years of support for the Brookings Doha Center and the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

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Qatar-U.S. Relations in a Changing Middle East

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Homegrown Terrorism in the Boston Bombings, President Obama's Middle East Visit, and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

Martin S. Indyk — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In an interview with Dana Weiss on Israel’s Meet the Press (Channel 2), Martin Indyk discusses homegrown terrorism in the Boston Marathon bombings, as well as President Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East, the role of Secretary of State John Kerry, and prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine. Read an excerpt below, and watch the full interview at mako.co.il (interview starts at 10:05).

Dana Weiss: You’re here for the INSS conference, but of course the focus is naturally on the events back in the U.S., and as we see the unfolding events in Boston, it’s quite clear that terror has struck again at the heart of America.

Martin Indyk: It’s the great irony, I’m here in Israel, which is normally ground zero for terrorism, and it’s happening in our backyard, in Boston. And it’s a big shock, I think, to Americans who thought that so many years after 9/11, so much effort taken to fight al-Qaeda, the taking out of Osama bin Laden himself, the sense that we had them on the ropes – and here, an act of homegrown terrorism that appears to be Islamist-related, jihadist-related – and how do you deal with homegrown terrorists?

It’s a kind of shock for the system, because look at what happened on 7/7 in London – those kinds of attacks from, again, homegrown terrorists there – it’s a very scary thing to imagine that they’re in our midst – and how do you find them under those circumstances?

Dana Weiss: And you know, the President asked not to jump to conclusions and to wait for the facts, but I think it’s quite clear that as you said, it’s not enough to get rid of bin Laden. There is actually no way to eliminate this terror, especially when it’s back to the extreme Muslim terror against the West.

Martin Indyk: Well, if that’s what we’re facing – and we have to be careful jumping to conclusions – but if that’s what we’re facing, then yes, it’s a long struggle that is, at its heart, ideological. And that’s, essentially, people turn to extremist actions – terrorist actions – for a range of motives, but certainly it seems that for Muslim believers, there’s a potential to move to an extreme point because of the teachings and extremist ideology that’s being perpetrated out there every day out there on the internet; places like Inspire magazine, and they can learn, get their instructions and learn how to build their bombs, and it becomes a metastasized problem.

Dana Weiss: And do you think it will affect in any way the American policy in the Middle East, pulling out of Afghanistan, even dealing with the situation here in our region?

Martin Indyk: No, I don’t think so. I think that the American people are tired of wars in this part of the world. Obama is holding up, it’s an achievement, of ending America’s involvement in wars in the greater Middle East, and that is very popular in the United States; with the United States Armed Forces as well. And so I think that people now draw a distinction between having to fight terrorism, wherever it rises as a threat, and avoiding the kind of ground wars in the Middle East. And of course Obama’s use of drones has, I think, led the American public to believe that we have a kind of easy way of dealing with this…

Dana Weiss: …yeah, from a far distance…

Martin Indyk: …from a distance, but not when it’s in your backyard.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: Israel's Meet the Press (Channel 2)

Image Source: © Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters

Energy, Indigenous Communities and the Arctic Council

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:30:00 -0400

Event Information

April 17, 2013
8:30 AM - 2:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

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Owing to the vast economic opportunities and environmental, social, and geopolitical challenges it presents, the Arctic is emerging as an important topic of debate. With an estimated 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves, and with climate change making shorter maritime routes through Arctic waters possible, the rewards of successful economic development are plentiful. However, the remote, pristine frontier is home to some of the world’s harshest conditions making energy development, maritime trade and tourism increasingly difficult and dangerous. The Arctic is also home to indigenous communities whose livelihoods are likely to be challenged by both the effects of climate change and increasing external human activity in the region.

On April 17, the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings hosted a forum to discuss the implications of greater Arctic energy and natural resource development and assessed how the international community can best cooperate to ensure that such developments are done in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The forum begins with keynote remarks from Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, president of Iceland, and Kuupik Kleist, a member of Parliament of Greenland and former Greenland prime minister. Other speakers included the incoming Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials of the Arctic Council, Patrick Borbey; David Hayes, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior; and Mead Treadwell, lieutenant governor of the State of Alaska.

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Scotland as a Good Global Citizen: A Discussion with First Minister Alex Salmond

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:30:00 -0400

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April 9, 2013
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

In an historic referendum set for autumn 2014, the people of Scotland will vote to determine if Scotland should be an independent country. The decision on Scottish independence will carry with it far-reaching economic, legal, political and security consequences for all of the United Kingdom (UK). The debate about Scottish independence will also be watched closely across the continent of Europe. An independent Scotland would have to review its relationships with the rest of the world, including its priorities in foreign and diplomatic affairs and its memberships of international organizations such as the European Union.

On April 9, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted First Minister Alex Salmond, MSP, leader of the Scottish Government, for an address on Scotland’s future as an independent nation. In his remarks, First Minister Salmond discussed the Scottish values and principles that would shape a modern, independent Scotland and the choices and opportunities that would characterize Scotland’s contributions to the world. The Right Honorable Alex Salmond has served as first minister of Scotland since 2007. He first became a member of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and has served as the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2004. Salmond was first elected as a member of the UK Parliament in 1987 and served until 2010.

Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks, and Fiona Hill, director of CUSE, moderated the discussion.

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Scotland as a Good Global Citizen: A Discussion with First Minister Alex Salmond

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A World in Turmoil: An Exploration of Issues Affecting Today's Global Order

Martin S. Indyk and Javier Solana — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

With a range of critical issues confronting the U.S. and the international community today, Distinguished Fellow Javier Solana and Vice President for Foreign Policy Martin Indyk discuss some of the most pressing challenges, from the war in Syria to the Euro crisis to Iran’s nuclear program.

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A World in Turmoil: An Exploration of Issues Affecting Today's Global Order

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A World in Turmoil: My Conversation with Javier Solana

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

There are many tensions and problems facing the world today. Distinguished Fellow Javier Solana and I discussed some of the most challenging issues in the current geopolitical landscape, including the Euro crisis, the war in Syria, and Iran's brinksmanship.

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A World in Turmoil: An Exploration of Issues Affecting Today's Global Order

A New Push for Mideast Peace

Martin S. Indyk — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Bernard Gwertzman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Martin Indyk looks at how President Obama's trip to Israel was a success. Read an excerpt below.

Bernard Gwertzman: It's been a couple of weeks since President Obama made his first trip to Israel as president, in which he gave a very well-received speech to an audience of students and touched upon the need for peace between Palestinians and the Israelis. Now Secretary of State John Kerry is apparently going to have to carry the peace-talks ball. Where do you think the United States stands after this trip?

Martin Indyk: In preparation for the trip, the White House wanted to remove any expectations that there would be any significant results, and the timing of the trip seemed to be structured in a way that would have the effect of lowering expectations because the president would be going only three days after the new government in Israel had been formed. But, in fact, the president was able to deliver what I consider to be two big things: the first was that he did win over that part of the Israeli public that is winnable. His popularity jumped in the first few days after his speech. He'd started from a low base of ten; now he's around forty, and that's very significant. And the fact that he took Israel by storm and won the hearts and minds of many Israelis had a direct impact on the second deliverable, which was the apology that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leading to the opening of renormalizing relations between Turkey and Israel.

The two are directly related. The fact that the president had turned himself almost overnight from being an unpopular figure in the minds of most Israelis into somebody who they now understood did care about them meant that he managed to convince them to trust him more. The importance of that was that Netanyahu knew that the Israeli public would punish an Israeli prime minister who mishandles the relationship between Israel and a popular American president. Netanyahu had been able to exploit the fact that President Obama was very unpopular in Israel. When he famously upbraided the president in the Oval Office, Netanyahu actually went up ten points in Israeli public opinion. Obama in effect reversed that when he asked Netanyahu during the trip to call Erdogan and apologize to him. Instead of saying he couldn't do that, which is basically the position that Netanyahu had adopted for three years, he turned around and said okay, essentially understanding that the Israeli public would support him in doing so and would criticize him for not responding to a president who had gone out of his way to manifest his friendship to Israel.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: Council on Foreign Relations

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Obama's Jerusalem Speech

Martin S. Indyk and Itamar Rabinovich — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Charlie Rose, Martin Indyk and Itamar Rabinovich discuss President Obama's recent speech in Jerusalem and prospects for the Middle East peace process. Read an excerpt below.

Charlie Rose: Characterize this speech by the President [Martin Indyk].

Martin Indyk: This speech was typical Obama at his best working his oratorical magic on a crowd that lapped it up. He spoke very convincingly about his commitment to Israel’s security and his understand of their security dilemmas, and particularly underlined he was going to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. But then he went into a riff about peace, and the necessity of peace, and the possibility of peace, and why peace has to be just, even saying; “Put yourself,” you Israelis, “in the shoes of the Palestinians,” and he talked over the heads of the leadership of Israel to say to them “you need to push your leaders, to take risks for peace”

Rose: Basically [Obama] saying; “you [Israel] have to make sacrifices on settlements and other issues in order to get some kind of agreement for Palestinians because that is in fact in the long term interest of your national security.”

Indyk: Exactly. “I care about your security but here is the best way to secure your future…”

Rose: An agreement with the Palestinians…

Indyk: An agreement with the Palestinians.

Rose: that gives them some sense…

Indyk: Two states for two people, he talked specifically about a Jewish state.

Rose: What did you think [Itamar Rabinovich]?

Itamar Rabinovich: I agree. It was a very well crafted, very convincing speech. It was in the heart of the mission to speak to the Israeli public. In a way, President Obama has been doing what President Sadat had done in the late 70’s. He came to Jerusalem before the actual negotiations with Mr.Begin in order to build support for the peace with Egypt at the time, and to enable Mr.Begin to make concessions and win public support. So he was investing public diplomacy in the same way trying to build support in the, or among, the Israeli public for the painful concessions that will have to be made.

Rose: And so how do you think the Prime Minister and his party will take this?

Rabinovich: They would have done, they could have done, without this part of the visit but they had their part of the visit in the first day.

Rose: Which was Iran?

Rabinovich: Well we don’t know what went on behind closed doors. But publically, you know Netanyahu came out weakened, hurt, from the elections and one of the criticisms leveled at him was that he mismanaged the relationship with the United States and here was the President all smiles and friendship and patting each other on the back. That was very good for Mr. Netanyahu, he relished it and he took advantage of it, but this was the first course. The second course is somewhat less tasty for the Prime minister.

Authors

Publication: Charlie Rose

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Five Things President Obama Can Do to Win Israel

Martin S. Indyk — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

As President Barack Obama begins his first official visit to Israel, here are five things he can do to make his trip worthwhile.

1. Reintroduce himself to the Israeli public.

This is the most important thing Obama needs to do during this trip. It will be a central aspect of this visit because the Israeli public has the impression that he doesn’t like them very much. In his first term they felt his coolness—he didn’t talk to them, he didn’t visit them, and he seemed to them to want to distance the United States from Israel in order to curry favor with the Arab world.

This is an unfair perception of him, but it is one that persists in Israel. Last Friday, a reputable poll in Ma'ariv (an Israeli Hebrew daily) showed that Obama has a 10 percent approval rating among the Israeli public. He doesn’t deserve that. And with such a low approval rating, he loses leverage on Bibi Netanyahu. An Israeli prime minister who confronts a popular American president will be punished politically by the Israeli public—but one who stands up to a president who is unpopular will actually go up in the polls, and that is precisely what has happened in the past four years.

He will have an opportunity in his speech to Israeli youth on Thursday evening to reverse the Israeli public’s perception of him. He needs to remind them of his strong record in support of Israel’s security and against its delegitimization at the United Nations and against Iran’s nuclear program. And he should explain to them that because he cares about their security, because he has their back, and because he will be in the trenches as he has been whenever they’ve faced a problem on his watch—that they also need to trust him when he says that he wants to help them solve their ultimate existential problem, which is the conflict with the Palestinians.

2. Reach an understanding on Iran with Netanyahu.

The need to reach an understanding with Netanyahu on Iran is also essential. They agree that containment is not an option and the negotiations route should be given every chance to succeed. But if negotiations fail, they need to discuss the contingency of a military option. The understanding needs to be not just that the U.S. can handle the problem more comprehensively than Israel alone, but also that the prime minister of Israel needs to be doing something as well. That is, beyond trusting Obama to take care of the problem, Netanyahu needs to be moving on the peace process with Palestine because if it comes to war with Iran, in the ramp-up to military action it will be absolutely essential that the U.S. and Israel are seen to be making every effort to make peace with the Palestinians.

3. Build a relationship of trust with Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinian dimension of this visit has received little attention. When Obama travels to Ramallah, he needs to rebuild his relationship with President Abbas. Obama has a jaundiced view of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), in part due to the way in which he has presented preconditions for going into negotiations and in part because of his rejection of the president’s personal request that he forego action at the United Nations. They need to reach a relationship of understanding and trust that has been absent to this point. Hopefully, Abu Mazen will make it clear that he’s ready now to move into negotiations, and the president should make it clear that he’s serious about helping him and ready to guarantee the outcome of a viable Palestinian state living in peace with a secure Jewish state.

4. Establish a “balance of deterrence” between Israeli settlement activity and Palestinian unilateral moves in the U.N. or the International Criminal Court.

The president should try to lay the groundwork for an understanding on settlement activity. As much as he wants to avoid the issue, in the new Israeli government he will meet, there is a settler in charge of the Housing Ministry, and the new defense minister and deputy defense minister are strong supporters of settlement activity. So there’s a good chance that there will be even more serious settlement activity than we’ve seen under the previous Netanyahu government. If he says nothing, they will take it as a green light.

Instead, Obama should say that if Israel restrains settlement activity unilaterally (rather than through negotiations), the U.S. will be able to go to Abu Mazen and insist that he avoid any unilateral actions at the U.N. and the International Criminal Court in return. In this way, a type of mutual deterrence can be established.

5. Empower Secretary of State Kerry.

John Kerry arrived in Israel a day ahead of President Obama and is also scheduled to return to Israel after the president returns home to follow up with Netanyahu on an initiative to jump-start the peace process. Kerry has a very steep mountain to climb; he cannot succeed unless the leaders and their publics in the region come to understand that the secretary of State is doing the president’s bidding. They have become so used to presidential involvement that they will take the secretary of State seriously only if they know that the president is behind him and not just indulging his desire to make peace while Obama pivots to Asia. Publicly and privately, the president needs to signal in unequivocal language that he is delegating the responsibility to his secretary of State, that he will be ready and willing to intervene when needed, that he cares about Israel’s security, and that the best way to secure that is through a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared in The Daily Beast.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: The Daily Beast

Resurrecting Obama's Reputation in the Middle East

Martin S. Indyk — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Witnessing Air Force One touch down at Ben Gurion Airport is a big deal for Israelis. The imperial majesty of that giant powder blue 747, and all the pomp and circumstance associated with it, sends a clear message that Israel's most important backer is about to step on to the Holy Land and from there to ascend to Jerusalem. And that inevitably generates high expectations that something dramatic is about to happen: a breakthrough negotiated, a peace agreement signed, a beloved leader buried. Indeed, many Israelis and Palestinians are impressed that the president made visiting them his first foreign trip of his second term.

What is noticeable about Barack Obama's first trip to Israel as president is that the White House has been working overtime to lower those expectations. Even the president himself felt it necessary to explain to American Jewish leaders last week that the trip "is not dedicated to resolving a specific policy issue but is rather an opportunity to consult with the Israeli government about a broad range of issues." Indeed, how could it be anything other than a broad consultation, since the new government in Israel will barely have been sworn in by the time the president meets with the prime minister and his cabinet.

So why, after four years of not coming to Israel, has the president chosen this moment to visit? Having waited so long, why not wait a little longer and give John Kerry, his new secretary of state, a chance to set things up, perhaps laying the groundwork for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that Obama could then bless?

Unfortunately, the president himself has such low expectations of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders he will be meeting, after they repeatedly disappointed him in his first term, that he no longer believes much can be achieved on the peace front. So why wait? Better to get the visit over and done with, demonstrate he is a lover of Zion, deprive his Republican adversaries of an effective talking point, and move on to greener Asian pastures.

That cynical view of the purposes of the Obama White House overlooks one critical objective that the president can achieve on this visit. He can reintroduce himself to the Israeli public as the American leader who does care deeply about their security and well-being, will be – as he has already been – in the trenches with them when the chips are down, means what he says when he vows that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, AND will be their reliable partner in the effort to resolve their existential conflict with the Palestinians.

The speech Obama delivers at Binyanei Ha'Uma in Jerusalem next Thursday evening to an audience of young Israelis will be the long-awaited analog to the speech he made to the Arab world in Cairo in June 2009. It will provide him with an opportunity to reintroduce himself to the Israeli people, identify with their hopes and fears, and build a quotient of trust that has been missing in their relationship.

If Obama can achieve that purpose, the trip will have been worth it. For if the Israeli public comes to view Obama as the trusted friend that he in fact is, Prime Minister Netanyahu will have to think long and hard before he decides again to upbraid the president in the Oval Office. It will not be so easy for him to refuse Obama's requests to restrain settlement activity, take confidence-building steps toward the Palestinians, and pipe down about Iran's nuclear program. Historically, the Israeli public has punished prime ministers who mishandle Israel's all-important relationship with a popular U.S. president. It's precisely because Obama has been so unpopular with the Israeli public that Netanyahu has been able to thwart his purposes. If the resident can change the balance of Israeli public opinion in his favor, he will benefit from a more positive relationship with a more pliant Israeli prime minister.

That in turn will help him with the Palestinians and Arabs. Obama thought he could please them by distancing the United States from Israel. What he didn't understand is that they gave up believing that will ever happen a long time ago. What they care about is not splitting the United States from Israel but having the president use his influence with Israel. His inability to do that in his first term cost him Arab support as well (today Obama's standing in Arab public opinion is lower than George W. Bush's).

Resurrecting Obama's reputation in the Middle East will be good for everything the United States needs to achieve there at a time of great challenge to American interests. Words alone will be insufficient to the task, but that speech in Jerusalem can be an important first step for his second term.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: Haaretz

Assessing the Stakes for President Obama's Israel Trip

Martin S. Indyk — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Tavis Smiley, Martin Indyk assesses the stakes for President Obama's first trip to Israel. Read an excerpt below.

PBS: I guess the start is whether or not I have just overstated the case. There are some who believe, as I intimated a moment ago, that the president’s very presence in Israel – that is to say, our president, Barack Obama – this very trip signals to some that there might be some renewed vigor, some renewed possibility for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Yet there are many more others, perhaps, I would say as I read, who think that that is really a false hope; that the expectations on this need to be tamped down. Where does Ambassador Indyk stand?

Martin Indyk: Well, certainly the White House has been trying to tamp down those expectations, including the president himself. He’s going early in his second term, just a couple of days after the Israeli government has been sworn in after their elections.

So it’s very hard to see what exactly could be done on this trip to actually achieve some kind of resumption of the negotiations. If he were going to try to do that, he would have gone later, he would have had the secretary of State go out, try to set things up in that way, and then come in and try to convene the negotiations.

He’s chosen not to do that, and I think the reason for that is that he doesn’t have himself high expectations that even resumption of negotiations is achievable at the moment. So I think his purpose is something else which could help further on down the road, and that purpose is to reintroduce himself to the Israeli public in particular.

They have gotten the impression that he doesn’t like them, that he wants to distance the United States from Israel. His standing in Israeli public opinion is at 10 points, believe it or not – a poll that was taken last Friday.

I think that that’s a bum rap that he has. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s been very supportive in so many ways of their security. But what they seem to care about is whether he loves them or not. They were showered with 16 years of affection by Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush, and they got used to that.

He now has an opportunity to go there, to explain to them that he’s got their back, that he’s been with them in times of difficulties, whether it’s at the U.N. or rockets from Gaza or the Iranian nuclear program, and that he’s going to be with them in the future.

I think he’ll use his oratorical magic, and I think he’ll have a powerful impact. That will be very helpful for an effort to restart the peace process after he leaves.

Authors

Martin S. Indyk

Publication: The Tavis Smiley Show (PBS)

Brookings Expert Roundtable on President Obama’s Trip to the Middle East

Martin S. Indyk, Khaled Elgindy and Natan B. Sachs — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:30:00 -0400

On March 19, President Obama will travel to the Middle East where, in addition to visiting Israel, he will meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. While this will be Obama's first visit to Israel as president, the White House has sought to lower expectations for any breakthrough in the peace process. In a roundtable discussion, Brookings experts Martin Indyk, Khaled Elgindy and Natan Sachs preview the president's trip. Their discussion explores Palestinian and Israeli expectations of Obama’s trip and the Israeli government's newly formed coalition government—including its prospects for negotiations with the Palestinians. They also discuss what role, if any, Secretary of State John Kerry might play in the future of the Middle East peace process.

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Brookings Experts on Netanyahu’s New Coalition Government in Israel

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:59:00 -0400

Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled his new coalition government, seven weeks after his re-election. Following deadlocked negotiations, a slimmer government—with just 21 members—emerged and will be Israel’s first without ultra-Orthodox parties since 2005. Netanyahu’s announcement comes just days before President Obama is scheduled to visit the country. Martin Indyk, Tamara Cofman Wittes, Michael Doran, Khaled Elgindy, and Natan Sachs weigh in on the new coalition, and analyze the effect on the Middle East peace process.

Tamara Cofman Wittes
Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Program

Benjamin Netanyahu starts his new term as Prime Minister in a weakened position after he conceded essentially to all of Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid's demands (even yielding on education minister at the last minute) and still not getting an agreement for another week.

Lapid as finance minister, and Yesh Atid holding education and welfare, puts them in a strong position to fulfill campaign promises and position Lapid for greater gains in the next election. Indeed, the next election seems his primary concern. For Lapid, the peace process is not a priority issue.

Bayit Yehudi, for its part, received ministerial positions for Jerusalem, Diaspora, and religious services, all key for its constituency. A former head of the settler council, Uri Ariel, will run the ministry of housing and construction. No one expects this government to last a full term. Scenarios raised are either that it won't pass a budget or that Netanyahu will stymie Lapid so badly that it will drive him out of the coalition, allowing Netanyahu to bring in the religious parties and to shape the government he wanted all along. The latter could, I believe, only strengthen Lapid in new elections.

Aryeh Deri notwithstanding, the Haredis' attitudes on territorial compromise have changed. Netanyahu may not be comfortable with the status quo in Israel's relations with the Palestinians, given the price in international isolation and the harm to trade and relations with Europe. But beyond making some gestures, it's not clear how much he is willing to do. And with or without the Haredim, his coalition will not push him in a conciliatory direction.

Michael Doran
Roger Hertog Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Program, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

If the U.S. pushes Netanyahu on anything serious (not likely), then the coalition will fall, because Bennett will not be able to support. Which leads to a counterintuitive conclusion: you really need the ultra-Orthodox parties in the government to support serious moves on Israeli-Palestinian issues, because those parties give the government an extra margin of support.

I predict a short life for this coalition. This strikes me as a government in which everybody will be jockeying for position in the next election right away. The big issue will be Haredim in the military, and that will be very divisive.

Israelis love to complain about the Haredim, it's true, and everybody thinks they have gone too far. However, the secular-religious fight that is going to open up will be brutal. It's the biggest fault line in the society, and once the religious start hammering away at this government, I think we will see lots of cracks open up quickly—on lots of different issues.

The territorial questions are not central to the Haredim’s political identity and their participation in a government gives the prime minister more room to maneuver. They do not facilitate, and they have obstructionist tendencies, but they help to create an environment that is more propitious than what we get without them, which we see before us now. To me, it's a great irony of Israeli politics that I never contemplated before now.

Martin Indyk
Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Program

The Haredim issue will not divide the government, but I don't doubt it will divide society. However, the bark is always worse than the bite in Israeli politics.

The proposition that the ultra-Orthodox parties need to be in the government for it to be able to make serious moves on Israeli-Palestinian issues is unsupported by any evidence. The Haredim have been one of the enablers of the settlement movement, and they moved progressively to the right on peace issues while they were in the government. Now in the opposition they'll be in bed with Labor and the Arab parties. Maybe that will bring them back to where they were during the Yitzhak Rabin years, but even then they were unreliable peace partners.

The Haredim are out of this government, so drafting them into the army will not divide it or bring it down. On the contrary: Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett are united on this issue, Tzipi Livni supports them, and Avigdor Lieberman’s side of the Likud is at least as hard line on it as they are. The rest of the Likud are secularist settler sympathizers. And the Haredim won't get much comfort from Shelly Yacimovich and their new leftist-secularist parties allies in the opposition. We are about to see a reasonable sharing of the burden. Good news for Israeli society even if it's bad news for the peace process.

Natan Sachs
Fellow, Foreign Policy Program, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

I agree that the Yair Lapid-Naftali Bennett alliance hides real differences between their parties, especially on issues of religion and foreign policy. In some respects, this is not a “natural” alliance; I'm actually very impressed by the discipline among the ranks of Bennett's Jewish Home party throughout these negotiations, sustaining the alliance with the secularist Yesh Atid. But the religious issues might not fracture the coalition in the short term; the main questions surrounding the Haredim have been agreed upon already and will be implemented before long, according the coalition agreement. In other words, that hurdle is largely passed. Now what remains is for Jewish Home to collect the benefits, in terms of jobs and influence within the religious community, from control over the religious affairs ministry and other positions of power. This they will be very happy to do.

One potential source of tension in the coalition is actually is the Bennett-John Kerry axis. If the United States pushes on the Palestinian issue, fissures can emerge between the core of the coalition and its far right. I agree completely that the Haredim are not a secure base for the Middle East peace process, but the Jewish Home is much less so. One of their central demands was to get the housing portfolio, with settlements in mind, and with the new, hawkish defense minister (Moshe Yaalon, from the Likud) there may be more activity on that front.

The potential silver lining for diplomacy is that some of the recent noises from the prime minister’s office are consistent with Tzipi Livni's more moderate approach. Even Yaakov Amidror, the national security advisor—probably as right wing as anyone—now reportedly sees the diplomatic price Israel pays over the settlements. The PMO's solution will likely be an attempt to garner support through talks--and through having Livni in place to lead them—whether or not these talks are meaningful or based on a true change in policy. But it's worth remembering that there is always discussion whether now—of all times—there is a change of heart in Netanyahu's circles on the Palestinian issue. This may well just be spin.

If and when the government falls, there could either be an alternative government, with the Haredim, or even new elections. A lot depends on whether Lapid sees an electoral opportunity and whether Livni is inclined to leave as well. If the center leaves en masse, Netanyahu will have a hard time, mathematically; the right + religious is likely too narrow for comfort. If Bennett's party leaves because of diplomatic developments, the Haredim may jump back in to get revenge on the Modern Orthodox, but if the mood is that Netanyahu is vulnerable, they may prefer elections to get their revenge on him too. In short, as is usually the case, the brand new government in Israel may not last its full term.

Khaled Elgindy
Fellow, Foreign Policy Program, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

It looks as though the new Israeli government intends to be quite active on the Palestinian issue after all—though not in the way most had hoped. With the appointment of Uri Ariel, former head of the settlers’ umbrella group known as the Yesha Council and himself a West Bank settler, to head the Ministry of Housing and Construction we can expect an even greater surge in settlement expansion in the occupied territories than we’ve seen in recent years. Ariel’s Bayit Yehudi party, the third pillar of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and third biggest vote-getter in the Knesset, not only opposes territorial concessions to the Palestinians but openly rejects the two-state solution itself—sentiments shared by many in Netanyahu’s own Likud party. The strong pro-settlement bent of the new Israeli government is certain to alarm Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, who are sure to reiterate their message about the dangers posed by the settlements and the urgency of a two-state solution to President Obama directly on his upcoming visit to Israel and the occupied territories. Having withstood similar pleadings for much of the last four years, however, there is little reason to expect the administration to abandon its laissez faire attitude toward settlements or become more actively engaged in peacemaking any time soon.

Martin Indyk

In addition to settler control of the Housing Ministry, the Interior Ministry will be in the hands of Likud and the Defense Ministry also. So the three critical ministries for settlement activity will be in the hands of those most committed to the settlement cause.

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How America’s War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:00:00 -0400

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March 14, 2013
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Along with the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s global war on terror has been characterized by the use of drones. In his new book, The Thistle and the Drone (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed—the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic Studies at American University and former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom— examines the tribal societies on the borders between nations who are the drones' primary victims. He provides a fresh and unprecedented paradigm for understanding the war on terror, based in the broken relationship between these tribal societies and their central governments. Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Ahmed demonstrates how America's war on terror became a global war on tribal Islam. This is the third volume in his trilogy about relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11 that includes Journey into Islam (Brookings, 2007) and Journey into America (Brookings, 2010).

On March 14, the Brookings Press hosted the launch of The Thistle and the Drone featuring a discussion on the regional, societal and humanitarian effects of the war on terrorism. Following Ahmed’s presentation, Mowahid Shah, a former Pakistani minister, and Sally Quinn, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s “On Faith,” joined the conversation. Khalid Aziz, a leading official from Pakistan, formerly in charge of Waziristan, offered recorded remarks via video.

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