Brookings: Programs - Foreign Policy

Welcome to Iran @ Saban

Suzanne Maloney — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:30:00 -0400

Welcome and khosh amadid!

Welcome to Iran @ Saban, a new blog featuring commentary and analysis on the array of issues related to Iran by scholars at the Brookings Institution. It takes only a quick scan of the headlines each day to appreciate the significance of Iran to American national interests and international security, and the variety and complexity of the issues and actors at stake. Through an intense focus on all things Iran, we hope to advance a better understanding of the internal dynamics of the Islamic Republic and promote effective international strategies for dealing with the challenges its policies pose.

We’ve timed our kick-off to coincide with the upcoming Iranian presidential election, in hopes of enriching the discussion that has already emerged around the ballot. As current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepares to leave office, Iran's internal power struggles will enter a new phase. From now through the vote on June 14^th and presumably well beyond, we’ll closely follow the twists and turns of Iran’s frequently unexpected electoral dynamics and consider what the future may bring for Iran. This discussion will delve into the major issues confronting Tehran today, especially the economic crisis and the impact of sanctions.

Although the electoral interplay will consume a great deal of attention in the next few weeks, the focus of the blog will extend well beyond the events of the election and Iran's domestic dramas. We will be tackling Iran’s approach to the region and the world, its relationship with established and emerging powers, and the strategies and tactics of various players, including the United States, toward Tehran. Inevitably, we’ll spend a lot of time examining the nuclear issue, starting with the prospects for revitalizing the stalled negotiations between Tehran and the international community and discussions around alternative approaches if dialogue fails to produce a diplomatic resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions. However, the sense of urgency surrounding the nuclear issue has narrowed the American debate on Iran in recent years, problematically in my opinion. For that reason, watch the space for a robust discussion of the range of issues and threats related to Iran, including terrorism, human rights, the peace process and the Syrian civil war, the rise of new regional and global powers, and the impact of technology and changes in energy markets on Iranian politics and the policy options of the international community.

Let me also say a few words about what this blog won’t be: this won’t be a vehicle for lobbying for or against any particular point of view. This blog will be infused with opinions – various and variegated – but in keeping with the Brookings’ mission, our discussions here on the blog will remain grounded in the ideals of intellectual objectivity, rigorous policy-relevant analysis, and civil debate. In that respect, we hope to integrate some of our longer form scholarship into the blog, by featuring previews of forthcoming publications related to Iran and initating conversations surrounding our ongoing research projects.

I also want to underscore that this will not be a solo venture. At the outset, my name may recur disproportionately, as the person charged with wrangling the blog’s content and as one of the few scholars who has the luxury of obsessing almost exclusively about Iran. However, Iran invokes a diverse and thorny set of foreign policy issues and concerns, and many of my Brookings scholars are at the forefront of research and writing on areas relevant to the Iranian challenge. We’ll try to draw in experts on a range of different regions, including China, Europe, and India as well as the scholars in our Doha office, and functional areas of expertise, such as energy, intelligence, and nonproliferation, and the site will feature the work of a fantastic team of Brookings staff providing with research and media support. As visitors to this site will soon appreciate, the whole of Brookings' work on Iran is much greater than the sum of its parts.

I want to close this opening with an overture: we want to extend the debate on Iran beyond the walls of Brookings, and we encourage you to join the conversation via email to IranAtSaban@brookings.edu We’ll also be on Twitter (via, among others, @maloneysuzanne) and engaging through a variety of other media.

Authors

Suzanne Maloney

Why Iran's Presidential Election Matters

Suzanne Maloney — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:26:00 -0400

In conversations with policymakers, journalists and analysts about the upcoming Iranian presidential elections, one question looms: does it even matter? Iran is, after all, an Islamic theocracy, a state in which the supreme leader is the ultimate decision-maker and elections are heavily stage-managed from start to finish. The president’s powers are explicitly limited, and whatever sense of electoral unpredictability that may have characterized Iran in the past— for example, in 1997, when a reformist cleric upset the heavily-favored front-runner— appeared to have ended with the contested 2009 reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Millions of Iranians outraged by the unusual speed and dubious margin of Ahmadinejad’s ostensible victory took to the streets chanting “where is my vote?” This violence that greeted this appeal, and the show trials and other Stalinist tactics that followed in its wake, seemed to suggest that Iran's quirky system had devolved to a more banal authoritarianism, where polls serve as mere pageants and institutions are unabashedly manipulated.

It would be tempting, then, to dismiss the election scheduled for June 14 as mere window-dressing or to disregard the brewing antagonisms within Iran’s political establishment as irrelevant. This would be a mistake, however, and yet another misreading of Iran’s complicated domestic dynamics. Don’t get me wrong— I don’t mean to suggest that the election will bear any resemblance to a truly democratic enterprise; even in the best of times, the Islamic Republic fell far short of meeting international standards for free and fair elections. However, while the outcome will be engineered, the element of improvisation is real, and the outcome of this latest twist in the thirty-four year power struggle within Iran will have significant implications for the future of the country and its role in the world.

If the past eight years of Ahmadinejad’s antics have taught us nothing else, they have demonstrated over and over again that Iran’s presidency matters. Despite its electoral illegitimacy, its institutional constraints, and the assiduous efforts of a system built around a divine mandate, the office of the presidency has emerged as one with real power to shape the context for domestic and foreign policy. The post exerts considerable authority over the Iranian budget, the framework for internal political activities, the social and cultural atmosphere, and even the most sensitive aspects of Iran’s security policies. Whoever assumes the office in August of this year will find himself near the apex of power, at a time of unprecedented external pressure and at the cusp of generational change within the Iranian regime. For this reason, the election and its outcome will have enormous sway over the future course of the Islamic Republic.

To appreciate the significance of the much-maligned Iranian presidency, simply consider the track records of its most recent occupants. During his two terms in office (1997-2005), reformist president Mohammad Khatami managed to curb some of the worst abuses of Iran’s own citizens and establish new avenues for political participation and speech. His tenure attracted foreign investment to Iran, unified its exchange rate, and established an oil stabilization fund to promote responsible economic stewardship. He repaired Iran’s relationships with much of the world, and even helped push through a multi-year suspension of the most worrisome aspects of its nuclear program.

It was not an unadulterated success by any stretch of the imagination; Khatami’s ambitions for change were inherently limited by his steadfast loyalty to the theocratic system and many of its most problematic policies, and even his mild reforms were thwarted at every turn by hardliners’ opposition. Still, compare those years to the two terms of his successor, who oversaw a crackdown against technocrats and the media, squandered an epic boom in oil revenues, and indulged in hate speech that helped alienate the world and isolate his country. It’s clear that Iranians as well as the international community were better served by Khatami’s halting moderation than by Ahmadinejad’s impetuous antagonisms.

It’s almost certain that the June election won’t produce a shocking upset or a reformist victory, and that whoever manages to secure the presidency this time around will offer continuity on the issues that matter most to Washington, particularly the nuclear issue. However, elections— even ones that are heavily rigged— represent critical junctures in the lifecycle of political systems, and in Iran they have repeatedly sent the revolutionary system careening in new directions. At times, these changes in course were deliberate, as in 1989 when Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ran virtually unopposed in order to spearhead the country’s post-war reconstruction. At other times, the shifts have been wholly unanticipated, such as the advent of the reform movement or even Ahmadinejad himself, whose mid-term transformation from the Supreme Leader’s acolyte to his whipping boy has given the Iranian political establishment whiplash.

Iran’s revolution was the product of a deeply divided coalition that agreed on little beyond their opposition to the Shah, and throughout its history, the Islamic Republic has experienced a intense, evolving competition for influence. That contest remains as dynamic as ever, and the election will offer an opportunity for external observers to gauge the state of play. For those within the system, the campaign provides endless openings for ambitious contenders and rival factions to position themselves for future influence and reframe Iran’s political climate, just as Khatami and Ahmadinejad did. The election will help determine what becomes of a regime stalwart, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the future prospects of the quixotic and enterpreneurial Ahmadinejad; and the rise or fall of a curious array of aspiring Iranian leaders.

And because the legacy of the revolution and Iran’s century-old struggle for representative rule has made popular participation incumbent even upon its theocracy, the election will mobilize millions of Iranians in ways that often prove difficult to control, even with a well-orchestrated repression. Over the course of the forthcoming weeks, we’ll be watching all these factors closely and seeking to interpret what the campaign and its outcome mean for Iran’s domestic evolution and its ongoing conflicts with the international community.

Authors

Suzanne Maloney

Premier Li Keqiang of China Goes to India

Tanvi Madan — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:00:00 -0400

On Sunday, Chinese premier Li Keqiang heads out from Beijing for his first visit abroad in that role. His first stop: India. He’s probably wishing the trip had taken place about a month and a half ago. At that time, there was a sense in India that the new leadership in China was reaching out to India for a number of reasons. Over the last month, however, temperatures rose in the Himalayas, as the long festering China-India boundary dispute flared once again. The good news for those interested in stable Sino-Indian relations: the two governments seem to have got past the recent incident. They continued to communicate throughout the crisis. Pre-scheduled China-India talks on Afghanistan were held in the midst of the crisis—their first such dialogue focused on the subject. Chinese and Indian military officers held a border meeting. The Indian foreign minister traveled to Beijing. And Li’s visit is going ahead. The bad news: The border incident reinforced the mistrust that many in India feel toward China and its intentions. Furthermore, it was a reminder that despite increased engagement, bilateral differences have the potential to stall, if not, reverse progress toward more stable relations. Li’s challenge: to get the relationship back on a positive trajectory and begin to convince a skeptical Indian public that the border incident was not representative of the new Chinese leadership’s approach toward India. Overall, the premier has his work cut out for him.

Before mid-April, many observers of Sino-Indian relations noted that under the new Chinese leadership there seemed to be an “upswing in relations.” Chinese president Xi Jinping proposed a five-point formula to improve ties with India. The two countries agreed to discuss Afghanistan. “Positive vibes” were detected at Xi’s subsequent meeting with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Durban. The Chinese government indicated that Li soon planned to travel to India.

This trend did not surprise observers. After all, there were enough reasons for Beijing to seek a stable relationship with India: economic ties, cooperation in the multilateral realm and a desire to limit India’s burgeoning relationships with the U.S. and Japan (reports indicated that Chinese officials were eager for the premier to visit India before the Indian prime minister headed to Tokyo in late May), as well as other countries in the region. There were also reasons for the political leadership not to want the relationship with India to deteriorate: such as preoccupation with China’s eastern maritime disputes and the North Korean situation, as well as the need for stability in the region with the impending American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

What did surprise observers was the border incident. Former U.S. deputy secretary of state James Steinberg, who was in India as the crisis played out, said “I don't know what the Chinese leadership is up to…confronting India and Japan, especially when they have been trying to build strong bilateral relations...The Chinese leadership should understand, it will not benefit them in the long run.” The opacity of Chinese decision-making meant that various theories were floated about why Chinese troops had taken the unusual step of setting up camp across the Line of Actual Control (LAC): differing perceptions of the LAC; “a rush of testosterone by local officers;” in response to India building up its border infrastructure; the desire of the People's Liberation Army to assert authority; the result of an internal political power struggle; Chinese expansionism; or Chinese strategic designs against India. One observer contended that a clear motive was near impossible to pinpoint: that “Chinese foreign policy is an enigma wrapped in a mystery.”

Since the resolution of the crisis, Beijing has tried to press a “reset” button, trying to return the relationship to its pre-crisis trajectory. The Chinese ambassador to India unusually took to the editorial pages of an Indian newspaper to emphasize, “To strengthen good-neighbourly and friendly cooperation with India is China’s strategic choice and established policy which will not change.” Chinese officials indicated that greater efforts should be made toward a boundary settlement.

The Chinese government also signaled that the choice of India as the premier’s first stop was very deliberate and a sign of the importance Beijing placed in the Sino-Indian relationship. Hosting an Indian youth delegation, Li put a personal spin on the choice, noting the “the seeds of friendship sown” when he visited India 27 years ago—a trip that he said left a “lasting impact.” Beyond trying to win hearts and minds, he also seemed to want to appeal to Indians’ pocketbooks, talking about the economic benefits of greater ties. Finally, he pointedly mentioned experiencing the “warmth and hospitality of Indian people.”

That hospitality will certainly be forthcoming on the part of key policymakers in the Indian government. Delhi has its own reasons for seeking stable relations with Beijing. Thus, Indian officials had joined their Chinese counterparts in playing down the border incident and seeking to resolve it speedily. Since it’s been resolved, both sides have sought to highlight their success in defusing the crisis, pointing to that as a sign of progress in the relationship. During that visit, they will work toward agreement on certain issues. Expectations are that there will be developments on the economic front. China-India watchers will also be looking for any sign of progress on the border and Brahmaputra river issues.

Among the Indian public, the welcome for Li is likely to be cooler. The recent tensions at the border—heavily covered in the Indian media—reinforced negative impressions of China among many in the Indian public. Many—even beyond the public—will take with a larger grain of salt the new Chinese leadership’s assurance that it intends for China to rise peacefully, be a responsible state, and seek good relations with India. The crisis has reinforced the narrative that has prevailed in many quarters since the 1962 China-India war: that China only understands strength; that while Beijing’s leaders say China and India “must shake hands,” they cannot be trusted—that one hand held out might just be a precursor to the other stabbing one in the back.

The border incident has also kept the focus on bilateral differences and even beyond the border issues there are many of those: China’s growing political and economic ties with India’s neighbors, its Indian Ocean ambitions, the overall lack of trust, cyber-security concerns, Tibet, the diversion of the waters of the Brahmaputra, a trade imbalance and restricted market access in China for Indian companies, the sense that China does not respect India and/or that it will seek to prevent India’s rise and, significantly, China’s relationship with Pakistan, which, of course, is Li’s second stop.

The incident also seemed to strengthen the hands of those inside and outside government who are skeptical of China’s intentions towards India and weakened the voices of those urging engagement with that country. Furthermore, the crisis negatively affected the credibility of the Indian government on issues related to security broadly and China in particular. This matters because significant bilateral progress on crucial fronts will require concessions from both sides—concessions that might now be harder for the Indian government to sell on its side.

Overall, that’s a lot of mistrust and skepticism to turn around in one visit. But if Li Keqiang wants to see the relationship prosper, the trip is a good time to start trying on two fronts. First, substance: progress on key issues will go a long way in building trust. Second, style: Li should take the opportunity to introduce himself and reintroduce the new Chinese leadership not just to Indian government officials and private sector leaders, but also to the Indian public—for it might be tempting to dismiss public sentiments, but they will play a key role in setting the limits of the relationship.

Authors

Tanvi Madan

Image Source: © China Daily China Daily Information Corp - CDIC / Reuters

John Kerry’s Indian Image: Moving American Policymakers Beyond "Pro" and "Anti" India

Tanvi Madan — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:17:00 -0400

Later this summer, US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit India for the US-India Strategic Dialogue. Before and during his visit, many observers in India will likely try to assess whether Kerry is "pro-" or "anti-" India. This is not surprising. In the narrative of US-India relations, there has always been a hall of fame and a hall of shame. Praise was heaped upon "heroes" — such as President John F. Kennedy and US ambassadors to India Chester Bowles, John Kenneth Galbraith and Robert Blackwill — for being pro-India. President Richard Nixon and secretaries of state John Foster Dulles and Henry Kissinger found themselves on the anti-India "villains" list. More recently, Kerry and Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel have been labelled anti-India or pro-Pakistan. However, this focus on whether policymakers are pro- or anti-India is limiting at best and harmful at worst. It can lead to an exaggerated view of the extent of the impact of one individual's personal bias and obscure more complex motivations and drivers of policymaking.

Conclusions about policymakers' biases have often been based on one or more statements made or one or two high-profile decisions taken. It is crucial, however, to focus on individuals' track records. Take Nixon. He has often been tagged as anti-India. In the early-to-mid 1950s, when he was vice-president, Nixon indeed had little patience for non-alignment and was a proponent of military aid to Pakistan. By 1957, however, he was internally arguing for greater economic aid to India. He made his view public too, asserting that "what happens in India... could be as important or could be even more important in the long run, than what happens in the negotiations with regard to Berlin."

In 1967, long before people were talking about the next century being an Asian century, Nixon also laid out the importance of Asia and how that continent's future would largely be shaped by four "giants" — China, India, Japan and the US. Writing at a time when there was much pessimism in the US about India and the Indira Gandhi government, Nixon noted with sympathy that India's "present leaders at least are trying... in exceedingly difficult circumstances" to move forward and doing so in a democratic context. Once in power, his administration did make the infamous one-time exception to provide military assistance to Pakistan, but he vetoed recommendations for a larger, more sustained package.

The pro/ anti-India narrative also does little to explain change. Why, in 1972-73, did Nixon and Kissinger work to rebuild the relationship with an India they disliked? Or, why did policy towards India change over the course of the Clinton administration with a similar set of policymakers? The narrative also assumes individuals' views stem from an inherent dislike or love for India, rather than circumstances or worldviews. It does not often recognise that individuals can change — and that Indian words and actions can shape views of India. Biographers of Indira Gandhi proclaim, often approvingly, that she treated Nixon badly in 1967, without any consideration of whether that treatment might have affected his views of India and her.

Furthermore, the narrative cannot explain how policymakers can make some statements and decisions that are "pro" India and others that are not. As Rajeev Sharma has noted in the case of Kerry, and Dhruva Jaishankar on Hagel, one can identify instances when these supposedly "not-India-friendly" individuals have supported legislation helpful to India — the India-US nuclear deal, for example.

In narratives of India-US relations, these simplistic conclusions are not restricted to depictions of US policymakers. Nehru is often portrayed as anti-US, even though he was perhaps the first to use the term "natural partners" to describe the bilateral relationship. Others insist on identifying Indira Gandhi as pro-Soviet, ignoring instances such as her resisting for two years her advisers' entreaties to sign an India-Soviet treaty.

This is not to say that personalities don't matter. They do, but their role needs to be put in context. They can facilitate cooperation or exacerbate conflict. They can help determine the policy option chosen. Personal relationships, too, matter. However, personalities are not the only factor — or often the primary one — determining policy and consideration of their role should go beyond discussions of the pro- or anti-Indianness of particular policymakers.

The pro/ anti India narrative often neglects to consider whether and how much the "pro" or "anti" policymaker influences policy broadly, and policy towards in India in particular. Cabinet members' or ambassadors' roles and influence are not the same as those of presidents. Moreover, it sometimes overlooks actors involved in shaping policy and the policy debate outside the White House and state department.

Instead of focusing on whether key policymakers are anti- or pro-India, it would be more worthwhile to assess which individuals are making policy; their role and influence in the policymaking process, especially relative to other policymakers, and their proximity to the president; and the nature of interaction between policymakers. Furthermore, it is crucial to analyse the worldviews of key actors; their perception of US interests and preferred strategy for achieving them; whether they see a role for India in that strategy and, if they do, is it as potential spoiler or supporter. Finally, it is essential to think about what India can do to build enough constituencies for the relationship in the US and ensure its own importance so that bilateral relations do not depend on — and are not thought to revolve around — one or two individuals.

Authors

Tanvi Madan

Publication: The Indian Express

Image Source: © B Mathur / Reuters

Iran Press Report: What to Make of the Glut of Presidential Candidates?

Mehrun Etebari — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:30:00 -0400

This week in the Iranian media, we witnessed reactions to the surprising number of recognized candidates who registered – many on the final day – to run in June 14^th presidential election. Some commentators on both the left and right wings of the Iranian press spectrum suggested that the number of candidates who registered on the conservative Principlist side poses a serious risk to that front’s chances. Even with the potential for a whittling of the Principlist slate via the ongoing vetting of the Guardian Council, which is due to finish on May 21, the disorganized approach from Principlist groups who had planned to coordinate and enter a small number of unity candidates is disturbing, said Mohammad Eskandari in the hardline daily Javan, particularly with the surprising late entrance of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani buoying the reformists’ presidential hopes. He wrote that he could envision different Principlist coalitions like the 2+1 Coalition, the Coalition of Five, and the Resistance Front putting individual ambitions aside and deciding on a unified approach. “However,” he continued, “the second possible path, which is for the unification process among the Principlists to remain fruitless, could translate to a major defeat for the Principlists, and thus allow the reformists to take the presidency.”

Understandably, this has led to some glee from commentators with reformist sympathies, as Rafsanjani remains far and away the most viable candidate in the reformist camp, leaving them no such indecision. Referring first to the 2+1 group of former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Majlis speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Javad Qorbani in Mardom-Salari marveled at how among this coalition set up to choose a single candidate most likely to win the election, all three registered because, as he sees it, “Each of the three candidates thinks himself to be the best.” He pointed to similar disunity in the Coalition of Five members Mohammad Hassan Aboutourabi-Fard and Manouchehr Mottaki both running. He concluded, “These disagreements show not only the Principlists’ lack of a plan and contradict their claim of unity, but they also indicate that those who claim to be Principlists are actually solitary individuals who have found the way up the ladder of power by sticking with the Principlist movement.” Other reformists suggested the entry of Rafsanjani was a “shock” that would force the Principlists into discipline out of necessity. Hassan Rasuli in Bahar argued that the conservative establishment would have to find a strategic choice who could appeal to a wide base, and guessed as to who that would be: “Among all the registered candidates, Mr. Jalili – who has good relations with the younger, newer wing of the Principlists and on a related note serves with Mr. Ahmadinejad on the Supreme National Security Council – has a higher chance than others to take the central place in the elections as a rival for Mr. Hashemi.” (This idea of Jalili as the obvious choice is far from unanimous in the Iranian media, with one Principlist MP telling Tehran-e Emrooz, “Qalibaf’s experience in various management areas as well has his performance in all executive duties have shown that he has the qualifications to become the focus of the Principlists’ unity.”)

The media has also been rife with reactions to the registration of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the controversial Ahmadinejad advisor and central figure in what critics call the “Deviant Current” that surrounds the president. The president has been criticized for his “illegal” act in accompanying his protégé to the registration, with Ali Rezaei writing in Javan that the president’s legal justification for his actions are ludicrous: “Another justification that the president and his entourage used is that the president had taken the day off on that day and he was using his personal identity, not his legal identity! Even if this justification is made in a kindergarten, the children will laugh at it since any illiterate knows someone serving as president cannot separate his personal identity from his legal identity under any circumstance.” In the same paper, pointing to arguments from the president’s entourage aimed at preventing the Guardian Council from disqualifying Mashaei, Yadollah Javani argued that the legal duty of the council must be performed without interference, and ignorance of the Council’s role and independence is tantamount to lawbreaking and reminiscent of the defiance that marked the 2009 election protests. Connecting complaints against the Guardian Council to the “sedition” of that year, he wrote, “According to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, the roots of the events of 1388 were a disregard for the law.”

APPENDIX: Translated Summaries of Selected Opinion Pieces (Newest to Oldest)

“The Principlists, Unity, and Passing this Historic Turning Point.” Mohammad Eskandari, Javan, 24 Ordibehesht 1392 / 14 May 2013.

In the hardline Javan, Eskandari expresses worry that the conservatives of the Principlist movement, who should be poised to easily win the presidency, are putting that goal in serious jeopardy through their own disorganization and lack of consensus on a candidate. He writes that these elections are at such a crucial time that the importance of getting them right is magnified, saying, “Iran, the region, and the world are poised at a historical turning point where any move on this chessboard has the potential to be crucial and fateful,” particularly due to Iran’s current role as the “standard-bearer of independent nations.” He argues that while a Principlist victory would have immensely positive ramifications, “a victory by the reformists, and particularly by Hashemi, would have to be considered a backward step.” However, he says, given the current state of affairs in the Principlist camp, Rafsanjani’s “arrival at the 90^th minute” and his ability to generate momentum has meant the prospect of Principlist defeat is a real one if the conservatives remain complacent. “Unfortunately, the state of the Principlists’ election planning is chaotic and there is no think tank to lead and organize the number of candidates. A high number of people in the Principlist movement have made themselves presidential candidates and each is based in a different branch of the movement.” He criticizes the inability of Principlist subgroups that should have been far more organized among themselves, such as the Resistance Front (which includes candidates Jalili and Lankerani) and the 2+1 coalition (made up of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Ali Akbar Velayati, and Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel) to register only one candidate each. He writes that the number of Principlist candidates will come down with the Guardian Council’s vetting, but that groups like the abovementioned alliances and the “Coalition of Five” will ideally get the number of their candidates down to two at most, which would at least be likely to guarantee that the election goes to a second round. But he remains worried: “However, the second possible path, which is for the unification process among the Principlists to remain fruitless, could translate to a major defeat for the Principlists, and thus allow the reformists to take the presidency.”

“Ahmadinejad is Opening Up a Confrontational Phase.” Hassan Rasuli, Bahar, 24 Ordibehesht 1392 / 14 May 2013.

In the reformist daily Bahar, Rasuli argues that Rafsanjani’s late entrance into the presidential election has shocked the reformists’ opponents both in the Ahmadinejad camp and the Principlist establishment. He writes that the Principlists in particular were given a sense of shock and factional uncertainty regarding their own strategy for the elections, as they had not been counting on a major reformist candidate such as Rafsanjani or former President Khatami to enter. He writes that looking at Principlist websites or looking at “newspapers such as Kayhan, the intellectual tribune of the movement” in advance of Rafsanjani’s entrance, it was clear that the conservatives had no expectation of a serious rival in the election. But now, the Principlists will be forced to sow unity among their varied ranks – or at least attempt do so. He suggests that one candidate above all would be ideal Principlist choice: “in the opinion of this author, amongst all the registered candidates, Mr. Jalili – who has good relations with the younger, newer wing of the Principlists and on a related note serves with Mr. Ahmadinejad on the Supreme National Security Council – has a higher chance than others to take the central place in the elections as a rival for Mr. Hashemi.” Meanwhile, he writes, Ahmadinejad’s camp, featuring Mashaei, appears to be seeking to sow controversy and chaos in the aftermath of Rafsanjani’s entry.

“Where Do Hashemi’s Doubts Come From?” Mohammad Imani, Kayhan, 24 Ordibehesht 1392 / 14 May 2013.

Following upon its articles last week insisting that Rafsanjani’s lack of a popular base and his near-certain failure in the election would keep him on the sidelines of the election, the Kayhan editorial by Imani argues that his entrance into the race does not change the fact that the ex-president has serious doubts about his ability to succeed in the race – and with good reason. Imani writes that the hesitation of the candidate comes from his own knowledge that his supposed supporters among the reformist front can’t be trusted to vote for him. He says that Hashemi remembers well how he gave support, via “secret” influence over his Kargozaran party, to Mohammad Khatami’s election effort in 1997, but that within 2 years, he received “payback” in the form of vilification from reformist activists.

“Words With the Flavor of Sedition.” Yadollah Javani, Javan, 23 Ordibehesht 1392 / 13 May 2013.

In the hardline Javan daily, Javani writes that there is a great threat from certain candidates – most notably Mashaei – of unconstitutional activities that seek to interfere with the legal process under which the Guardian Council is vetting candidates. He points to the way in which President Ahmadinejad accompanied his advisor on the occasion of his registration as evidence of the attempt to pressure the Guardian Council, which should be left to its independent duty. He also says that those who criticize the Council in advance, suggesting that its vetting is a hindrance of democracy on political grounds, are mistaken, because it is an important duty to “prevent improper individuals from becoming president.” He asks those candidates who accuse the Council of plotting to interfere, “Is it their view that all 686 registered candidates be allowed to run in the election?” He insists that all candidates remain silent and wait for the results of the vetting, because anything else is tantamount to ignorance and violation of the constitution. “According to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, the roots of the events of 1388 were a disregard for the law.”

“Two Coalitions, One Fate: The Principlists’ Un-principled Behavior.” Javad Qorbani, Mardom-Salari, 23 Ordibehesht 1392 / 13 May 2013.

In the moderate daily Mardom-Salari, Qorbani writes that the Principlists are in complete disarray, as can be seen from the chaotic nature of their candidate registration. Particularly, he points at the fact that two notable Principlist coalitions that were set up to choose a single candidate failed to limit their registrations to a single candidate, showing a lack of discipline and unity. Even though the 2+1 coalition was designed for only one candidate, deemed to be the most likely to win, to come forward as a candidate, as he puts it, “Each of the three candidates thinks himself to be the best.” He writes that words from Haddad-Adel indicating that all three candidates registered to ensure that at least one of them emerged from the vetting process smacks of insincerity and it laughable. “With the knowledge that we have of the Guardian Council, if the eligibility of these three candidates is not confirmed, whose eligibility will be?” He also points to the fact that the Coalition of Five supposedly announced that Aboutourabi-Fard was put forward as a candidate with the approval of the entire group – yet former foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki registered anyway, citing his greater popularity in polls. He argues, “These disagreements show not only the Principlists’ lack of a plan and contradict their claim of unity, but they also indicate that those who claim to be Principlists are actually solitary individuals who have found the way up the ladder of power by sticking with the Principlist movement.”

Authors

Mehrun Etebari

A Statesman’s Forum with H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 17, 2013
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Online Only
Live Webcast

Webcast Archive:

This text will be replaced

On May 17, the Center on the U.S. and Europe at Brookings hosted a Stateman's Forum with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In his remarks, Mr. Erdoğan reflected on three terms of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leadership during a period of rapid evolution for Turkey and its role in the world.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became Prime Minister of Turkey in March 2003, following the electoral success in 2002 of the AK Party. In the 2007and 2011 elections, the AK Party was returned to power with landslide victories in Turkey's parliamentary elections, making Mr. Erdoğan the longest-serving prime minister in Turkish history. Previously, Mr. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1997. He was educated at Marmara University.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott introduced Mr. Erdoğan. At the conclusion of the Prime Minister's remarks, Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci moderated a discussion.

Video

Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan's U.S. Agenda

Kemal Kirişci — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:46:00 -0400

Editor's note: On May 17, 2013 Brookings hosted Prime Minister Erdogan for an event on U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting Washington this week and will meet with President Obama today. This is his first visit to the United States since December 2009. But the world and the Middle East have changed dramatically since then. Thus, the agenda for Erdogan’s talks with Obama will be a very crowded one. Four topics in particular are likely to stand out.

1. The Situation in Syria

Erdogan arrives in Washington at a time when there is growing pressure on the Obama administration to change its course on Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry has already taken some steps to increase nonlethal support for the opposition in Syria while putting growing pressure on the moderate opposition to tighten their ranks and distance themselves from radical Islamist groups. These measures are unlikely to satisfy Erdogan. He has long been a vocal critic of the international community, the United Nations Security Council and the United States for idly “watching the tragedy” unfolding in Syria.

He is likely to remind Obama quite loudly that the butchery of civilians by the Assad regime has reached levels that makes it unethical not to respond to and that, as the car bombs that exploded in Turkish border town of Reyhanli last weekend demonstrate, Turkish national security is being directly affected. He will also offer facts and figures to show how the humanitarian situation is fast deteriorating and becoming untenable with an ever expanding flow of refugees and displaced people. He will not miss the opportunity to share with Obama the evidence collected from refugees arriving in Turkish hospitals that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons. Erdogan may go as far as to push Obama to support the idea of creating a no-fly zone along the Turkish border.

Read the full article »

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

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

Ordering Information:

{BEE4D1CC-5E07-4799-AEF4-76EAC977FCEC}, 978-0-8157-2447-6, $22.95 Order

Lessons and Context of the Navy’s First Carrier Drone Flight

Peter W. Singer — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:33:00 -0400

The U.S. Navy recently made history with its flight of the X-47B UCAS, the first unmanned carrier drone (unmanned systems) to launch from an aircraft carrier. In 2009 and 2011, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings had the pleasure of hosting then Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Gary Roughead, to discuss the future of unmanned operations. The vision he laid out is well on its way to fruition, making it especially useful to place what happened today in the context of the larger U.S. defense strategy and to look at what lessons have been learned in the development of unmanned systems. As I explored in a look at the past and future of naval aviation after 100 years of flight, this success is only one part of a much bigger story.

What this history tells us is that, now that the Navy has crossed yet another step that the naysayers said could never be done, the challenges are as much organizational and political, as they are technical. For example, now that unmanned systems have shown they can fly off a carrier, what will be their exact role? Whether they will be delegated to take on tasks on their own or paired with manned planes, for a package that is greater than the sum of its parts, is a crucial question of naval air combat doctrine moving forward. It is akin to the questions that early warplanes faced as to whether they were to be tethered to the existing surface force of battleships as scouts or serve as their own, as a new form of a battle fleet.

We are only at the start of this robotic revolution at sea, just around the World War I stage of things, if manned airplanes are a parallel. Just as the first Navy planes started out doing only observation, but soon began to be used for everything from bombing runs to carrier onboard delivery (COD), so we are seeing a similar expansion in the roles of unmanned systems. UCAS originally started out being just in the observation ISR role, but clearly has a more lethal future, while the Marines are already using robotic helicopters for roles like cargo delivery in Afghanistan. But just like back then, we don’t yet have all the answers as to the optimal doctrine. Even the basic design of this technology remains to be learned and adopted.

A second lesson is that despite its relentless advancement, there are no signs that technology will end the central role of humans in war and at sea any time soon. However, not “ending”, isn’t the same thing as not “changing.” The specifics of the human roles will be altered, but again, this is nothing new. Most Navy warplanes today don’t have tail gunners or navigators. The skill sets and ranks of those who wear the wings of gold might be altered, which opens up the kind of internal identity and qualification questions in the Navy that have also recently challenged the Air Force. Does the remote operator (note: “operator,” not “pilot” is the terminology so far in the Navy, as opposed to how the Air Force views the requirement) of a plane that can take off and land on its own, who is sitting behind a computer screen, actually need 20/20 eyesight or the ability to do 50 sit-ups? Do they even need to be an officer (akin to how the Army has handled UAS versus the Air Force)? The next few decades will be an exciting time, with new paths being forged, much like they were by the first generation of naval aviation pioneers.

This leads to a third challenge that may be the most vexing to the Pentagon in the years ahead. In an article entitled U-Turn, I explored how there are a series of speed bumps that loom for unmanned systems, not so ironically just as they are making their mark. These range from internal cultural resistance to budgetary battles, in which the new is often disadvantaged against the old. We are seeing this play out here again. Few realize that (according to figures from the DoD UAs office), at the very same time the X-47 knocked down yet another technical barrier, the Navy’s planned UAS budget is being cut by 24%, several times greater than the rest of the budget cuts. Indeed, the tension that the successful UCAS test created for F35’s longer term buy numbers is much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, not to be spoken about, but palpable.

Bottom line: Congrats to the Navy and the team behind the X-47B on yet again making history, but this history tells us we have an array of questions to explore in the years ahead.

Authors

Peter W. Singer

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Comeback Kid

Bruce Riedel — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:12:00 -0400

Nawaz Sharif is the comeback kid of Pakistani politics. With his party’s electoral victory, he is poised to become prime minister for an unprecedented third time. The Sharif odyssey has been remarkable—but now we will see if he can convert his victory into a new beginning for his deeply troubled country and our own tortured relations with it.

The 63-year-old Nawaz Sharif was born into money as the scion of a very wealthy family in Lahore. He entered politics to protect the family’s industry from nationalization. In the 1980s he became a protégé of Pakistan’s third military dictator, Zia ul Huq, and became the dominant politician in the country’s richest and most populous province, the Punjab. In 1990 Sharif was elected prime minister after his great rival, Benazir Bhutto, was booted out by the military.

I first got to know Sharif when I was President George Bush’s Director for South Asia and Persian Gulf Affairs in the White House in the early 1990s. Sharif was America’s partner in trying to wind down the decade-old war in Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed communist government that had outlived the defeat of the Soviet 40th Red Army in 1988, and was still clinging to power in Kabul. Unfortunately, when the communist government finally did collapse in 1992, it only ushered in a vicious civil war among the victorious mujahedin. Pakistan was left to deal with the consequences on its own as America abandoned Afghanistan to its fate. And Sharif lost power in 1993 to Benazir Bhutto.

He was elected back to a second term as prime minister in 1997. A year later he tested Pakistan’s nuclear weapons after India tested its first. As President Clinton’s Special Assistant for Near East and South Asia Affairs, I tried to persuade Sharif not to follow India’s path, but to no avail. In 1999 Sharif’s hand-picked Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, exploded a détente Sharif had arranged with India by starting a war in Kashmir. Normally very shy, Sharif invited himself to the White House on July 4, 1999, to find a way out, and wisely agreed to Clinton’s demand that Pakistan unilaterally abandon the war Musharraf had orchestrated. Sharif’s decision averted a wider—and very possibly nuclear—war.

Sharif fired Musharraf on October 12, 1999, while the general was visiting Sri Lanka. The general refused to step down and instead orchestrated a coup and arrested Sharif. A military court was summoned to try Sharif for treason. Only in Pakistan could a legitimately-elected prime minister be labeled a traitor for firing the country’s top general—a general who Sharif had selected for the job in the first place. Many expected Musharraf to have Sharif executed, just as Zia ul Huq had executed Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Bhutto.

Clinton tasked me with saving Sharif’s life. The president believed Sharif did not deserve death, and that it would be a disaster for Pakistan to execute another elected leader after a military coup. I spent a great deal of time arguing for clemency with the Pakistani ambassador in Washington. The ambassador was sympathetic to the argument—but I needed more help. The Saudi ambassador to Washington at the time, Prince Bandar, provided the heavy lifting.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also did not want a repeat of the Zia-Zulfi nightmare. Then Crown Prince Abdallah used the Kingdom’s considerable influence in Pakistan to save Sharif. Saudi Arabia is Pakistan’s closest ally, and has given more financial aid to Pakistan than to any other country in the world. Abdallah asked Musharraf to let Sharif go into exile in Saudi Arabia. As Musharraf later wrote in his memoirs, it was an offer he could not refuse. After 14 months in prison, Sharif went into exile in the Kingdom in December 2000. Few expected him to ever return home.

Now the tables have turned. Sharif has won a massive electoral victory and his long time tormentor, Musharraf, is under arrest in Pakistan after returning from his own exile to run in the elections. Musharraf was ousted by popular pressure in 2008, became a billionaire in exile in London, and then foolishly decided he was Pakistan’s savior this winter and decided to go home to be swept back into power by the people. He miscalculated badly. No one in Pakistan wanted the self-appointed savior, and he is now under house arrest. He faces a number of charges and could be tried for the coup he orchestrated against Sharif. The irony is rich.

But Sharif faces a real challenge over what to do with Musharraf. The general has few supporters even in the army, but the officer corps will be very uncomfortable with the prospect of one of its own serving prison time, or worse. Since many of the senior commanders in the army today, including Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, are former Musharraf protégés who rose with him to power, the question of what to do with Musharraf now is a dangerous challenge. The courts will decide his fate but the next prime minister’s voice will matter.

Deciding how to handle the Musharraf affair is only one of Sharif’s huge challenges. The country is under siege by some of the extremists it nurtured during the wars in Afghanistan. Some 45,000 Pakistanis have died in extremist terrorism since 2001, and violence wracked the election. Sharif has urged a political process to try to end the terror, and has been widely accused of being too soft on the Pakistani Taliban. He has long coddled Pakistan’s most dangerous terrorist group, Lashkar e Tayyiba, which carried out the Mumbai massacre in 2008 and which has its headquarters in Sharif’s home city of Lahore. LeT retains very close links to the army and the intelligence service, the ISI.

Nonetheless, Sharif has also promised to turn a page in Pakistan’s relations with India and has invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to his inauguration. As an industrialist billionaire, Sharif knows the Pakistani economy desperately needs more trade and investment from its far more vibrant Indian neighbor. Pakistan’s economy is in shambles, and half the people in the country are under 15 with little hope for a decent education or a good job. Sharif is not obsessed with rivalry with India like his generals; his vision of Pakistan is more about building highways and mass transit than an arms race Pakistan cannot win. In the campaign, he promised that he will build a fast bullet train line linking the port city of Karachi to the northern city of Peshawar. When last in the prime minister’s office, he built a modern highway to link Lahore to Islamabad.

America’s relations with Pakistan are at an all-time low, yet Washington provides huge quantities of military and economic aid to Pakistan: over $25 billion since 2001. We are on opposite sides of the war in Afghanistan where Pakistan and the ISI are the Afghan Taliban’s key ally, even as we depend on Pakistan for the vital supply line that allows us to withdraw our heavy equipment from Afghanistan as we transition out of the country by 2014. Inside Pakistan, our drones fly daily missions looking for al Qaeda— missions Sharif promised to try to halt during the campaign. He did not endorse his rival Imran Khan’s call to shoot down American drones (probably with American-supplied F-16s) but he will face much popular demand to end the drone war.

Two presidents, Bush and Clinton, worked with Sharif with mixed results during his two previous tours as prime minister. Now that the comeback kid of Pakistani politics is on the verge of his third time in the top office, President Barack Obama will need to partner with Sharif. It’s an opportunity Obama needs to make a success.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: © Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Pragmatism May Drive Israeli-Turkish Ties

Kemal Kirişci — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Israeli-Turkish relations are likely to feature prominently during Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Washington, DC. Turkish and Israeli officials are engaged in talks to work out Israeli compensation to the families killed and injured during the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident. These talks are part of a U.S.-brokered rapprochement between the two countries, which began with an official apology by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Erdoğan in late March for “any mistakes that might have led to the loss of life or injury” aboard the Mavi Marmara. This hasn’t been an easy exercise; a major challenge for Turkey comes from finding a balance between the domestic debate over the lifting of the blockade of Gaza and Turkey’s own compensation issues for the Kurdish population on the one hand and Turkey’s pressing national security needs against the deteriorating situation in Syria on the other.

The families of the Mavi Marmara victims have repeatedly objected to compensation talks until the Gaza Strip blockade is lifted. The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH), the Turkish NGO which organized the Mavi Marmara trip, and the hard-core Islamists who partly constitute the electoral basis of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) also publicly support their position. Recently, they held a major public meeting promoting the idea of “first lifting the blockade” and took a critical view of Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç’s involvement in compensation talks with Israel. Interestingly, Erdoğan chose to remain silent on the issue and allow Arınç to face the criticism on his own. Arınç’s position and Erdoğan’s silence should be viewed in the context of Turkey’s own domestic compensation issues.

As much as the Turkish government in recent times has been trying to address the Kurdish problem and reach a political solution, the three decades’ old conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has taken a heavy toll on civilians. It has led to the injury and death of many civilians, loss and destruction of property, and the internal displacement of over 1 million civilians. Long discussions related to compensation for these individuals finally culminated in the Turkish government’s passing of a compensation law in 2004. The law aimed to facilitate the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and compensate them for their losses. Yet, critics of the implementation of this law say it falls short of sufficiently compensating the economic losses and emotional pain IDPs have suffered. Furthermore, critics cite high rejection rates among those applying for compensation and a failure to formally recognize victims and acknowledge any wrongdoings toward the individuals as shortfalls of the compensation law.

A more recent example is the Uludere incident where 34 civilians of Kurdish ethnicity were mistaken for PKK terrorists and killed in an airstrike by the Turkish military in the southeastern corner of Turkey in December 2011. Although the Turkish government has offered close to $70,000 in compensation for each victim, families of the victims have refused to accept the offer until a full investigation takes place, those responsible for the attack are brought to justice, and an official apology is issued by the Turkish state. Such an apology has not so far been issued, prompting criticism in Turkish media outlets over the importance placed on an Israeli apology for the victims of the Mavi Marmara while the victims of Uludere wait for an apology and compensation from the Turkish government.

As compensation talks with Israel continue, the real challenge will lie in the Turkish government’s ability to soften the position of the İHH, hard-liners within AK Party and the victims’ families toward the Gaza blockade while keeping an eye on Turkey’s immediate geopolitical interests. Shifts in the balance of power in the region brought about by the Arab Awakening and most recently the Syrian crisis is pushing Turkey to re-evaluate its position toward Israel. Pragmatism on the part of Turkey and Israel in resolving their differences will be of greater benefit to addressing the growing security and humanitarian challenges resulting from the Syrian crisis as well as improving the welfare of the Palestinians in Gaza than if negotiations between the two countries failed. As Prime Minister Erdoğan prepares for his visit to Washington, DC, this week, the carnage provoked by two car bombs that exploded in the Turkish border town of Reyhanlı on Saturday will surely be a stark reminder of the need for this kind of pragmatism. U.S. President Barack Obama should seize the occasion of the visit to promote such pragmatism but also be willing to listen to Erdoğan’s deep-seated and genuine frustration with the situation in Syria. An empathetic ear on the part of Obama may go a long way in not only helping to improve Israeli-Turkish relations, a major U.S. objective, but also start cooperating in concrete terms to address an ever-expanding Syrian crisis.

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Publication: Hurriyet Daily News

Image Source: © Murad Sezer / Reuters

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.

Video

Audio

American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

65 Years After 'Catastrophe,' Palestinians Have Little to Cheer About

Ibrahim Sharqieh — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

On May 15, the Palestinians will commemorate 65 years of their “Nakba” – “the Catastrophe.” This is how they describe 1948, which saw the destruction of Palestinian society, 750,000 Palestinians forced from their homes, and over 450 Palestinian towns wiped off the map. Today, there are over 5 million Palestinian refugees registered with the United Nations’ UNRWA. But while 1948 was a terrible trauma for the collective Palestinian memory, the reality is that it was only the beginning of a long journey of displacement, dispossession, and exile. The real Nakba is ongoing, and the Palestinian people live it on a daily basis both inside and outside the Palestinian territories. As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry throws himself into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, we have to ask: Will his efforts bring this human tragedy a step closer to the end? Or only make it worse?

On a recent trip to Lebanon, I made sure to visit the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. While under control of the Israeli army that occupied Beirut in 1982, approximately 800 to 3,500 Palestinian refugees were massacred at the hands of Christian militias. In the camps today, the bitter reality of the Palestinian refugees’ life in exile is on full display: an enormous mass grave in the camps’ center holds the victims of 1982 massacre. It is a daily reminder to the refugees of their continuing human tragedy.

The Palestinians in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp have hardly been spared the bitterness of displacement and dispossession. Since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the estimated 150,000 Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk have reportedly been subjected to terror, horror, and murder of all kinds. Many have fled the camp to become “double refugees” in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan. Um Mazen, one of these twice-displaced told the Financial Times, “It’s the Nakba of Yarmouk.”

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, too, have their share of Nakba. An Israeli policy of collective punishment has left 1.7 million Palestinians trapped in a besieged Gaza, the world’s largest prison. In the West Bank, the modern-day Nakba can be seen in continued settler violence, settlement expansion, and a dividing wall that encroaches on Palestinian land and, in many cases, deprives people of their livelihoods. This is in addition, of course, to the many Palestinians of Jerusalem who lost the right to return home after living only a few years abroad.

Against this grim backdrop, Kerry has made a public commitment to bring peace to the region through his intensive personal diplomacy. But while it may be too early to pass judgment on his initiative, the traditional American approach to this conflict has been predictable – and unworkable. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, suggested ending the agony of Palestinians refugees’ exile by sending them to…Chile and Argentina.

As Edward Abington told me, Arafat urged President Bill Clinton to ask Benjamin Netanyahu to stop or at least delay the construction of the Har Homa colony – a colony that threatened the collapse of the entire peace process. Abington – former U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem and the key U.S. contact with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1996 – said that Arafat repeatedly entreated Clinton, but to no avail. Finally, Clinton is said to have passed the request on to newly appointed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She seemed to done nothing. It was then, Abington said, that Arafat knew he could not count on the Americans to make a real difference.

The Palestinian Nakba is one of the root causes of today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict; if Secretary Kerry is to succeed, he will need to address it. The economic package he plans to introduce would affect the Palestinians in the West Bank. But it would do nothing for the Yarmouk’s double refugees or Shatila – surrounded by death, past and present.

Kerry’s major step to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been the adjustment of the 11-year-old Arab Peace Plan to include mutual land swaps. The plan will now accommodate the illegal Israeli colonies in the West Bank – including Har Homa. It is absurd that Washington’s position has shifted from freezing settlement activities during the Obama administration’s first term to accommodating those settlements in the second term.

By pressuring the Arabs to accept land swaps even before negotiations begin, Kerry has set up his mediation efforts for failure. He has left no incentive for the Netanyahu government to negotiate; on the contrary, now that the Arabs have in principle accepted land swaps, Netanyahu will likely take advantage of this concession to further intensify settlement activities.

By presenting the land swap to Netanyahu without a firm commitment to stop settlement building, Kerry has sabotaged himself. As he will discover, Netanyahu’s right-wing government is only interested in exploiting every possible opportunity to sabotage peace efforts, building more colonies – and as a result, continuously exacerbating the crisis of America’s image and credibility in the Middle East. To be certain, Netanyahu government has just announced, in response to Kerry’s land swap, the building of 300 units at the heart of the West Bank’s city, Ramallah. This outcome has shown clearly there is nothing innovative about Kerry’s peace plan and that his efforts align perfectly with traditional Washington mediation efforts of appeasing Israeli governments, damaging American image and credibility in the region, and of course making the anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba more painful.

Authors

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Publication: CNN

And They’re Off: The Campaign for a New Iranian President Has Begun

Suzanne Maloney — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:26:00 -0400

The race to replace Iran’s deeply polarizing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, officially opened last week with the registration of prospective candidates, and already the campaign promises an utterly fascinating ride through the unpredictable politics of the Islamic Republic. The shock and awe surrounding the last-minute decision by Iran’s iconic former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to throw his hat into yet another race has only been topped for drama by the latest antics of the current incumbent aimed apparently at elevating a controversial protégé to succeed him. At least at the outset, these sensational developments have overshadowed the emerging shape of the real race among an array of regime functionaries, most notably nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

With 686 would-be candidates and an array of insidious regime mechanisms for influencing the outcome, it is literally impossible to predict today who the ultimate contenders will be, much less who will win the race. However, what is clear is that Iran’s presidential election represents the opening salvo in another historic turning point in the volatile evolution of the revolutionary theocracy.

The application period is a deliberately chaotic process, designed to justify the pretense behind the clerical vetting process and bolster the credibility of the nominees who are ultimately tapped by Iran’s Guardians’ Council, a 12-member unelected clerical oversight body. There is also a keen dimension of political theater, as the prospective candidates seek to gauge their relative prospects and the leadership endeavors to maintain an uneasy balance between galvanizing popular interest in the campaign and inciting the kind of electoral exuberance that has generated instability in the past. Over the course of the next 10 days, the field will be narrowed from several hundred to a mere handful who are assessed to meet the constitutional standards for the office.

This time around, the chaos has been intensified by the lingering memories of the upheaval that ensued in 2009, when an implausibly rapid vote-count and wide margin in favor of Ahmadinejad’s reelection instigated the largest and most sustained protests in Iran’s post-revolutionary history. The ensuing crackdown left Iran’s burgeoning reform movement estranged, imprisoned or scurrying into exile. Predictably, however, no sooner had the conservative wing of the Iranian political spectrum achieved uncontested dominance than deep fissures emerged within them. For the past two years, frictions among Iranian hard-liners have been directed, full bore, at Ahmadinejad himself, which greatly heightens the significance of the current contest to succeed him.

Cue Ahmadinejad’s first electoral adversary, Rafsanjani, whose entrance has sparked an intense debate about his motivations as well as about the competition to come. In a prospective field comprised mostly of second-tier Iranian political figures, mostly former ministers and parliamentarians, he is vastly better known and boasts a political machinery that spans factions and decades. For many within Iran’s dispirited reformist and opposition ranks, the former president offers their best hope of political redemption and national salvation, a hint of their own marginalization given their past differences with him. Rafsanjani’s reputation for pragmatism is well-earned; he was tasked by Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolution’s founder, with ending the futile war with Iraq and later endeavored against stiff opposition to rehabilitate the country and reform its economy. He has carefully navigated fidelity to the system while critiquing both Ahmadinejad and the 2009 election, and his return to the presidency would likely revive now-dormant diplomatic fantasies in Europe and perhaps even Washington.

However, the former president faces powerful impediments that had persuaded many observers that his recent hints about the race were just a tease. Mostly notable is his age – almost 79 – which raises questions of capacity but also may undermine his appeal in a country with a disproportionately young population. More problematic is the unfortunate reality that he appears to have a more effusive constituency in the Western media than in Iran. Among the Iranian establishment, Rafsanjani is widely perceived as wildly corrupt and ideologically untrustworthy, and the population at large rejected his bid for a parliamentary seat in 2000 and favored Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential run-off. Now his unexpected entrance has incited a firestorm among the most doctrinaire of the hardliners, who have accused him of conspiring to delegitimize the system by daring the clerical supervisors to reject his candidacy.

Whatever happens, though, the calculations of the politician nicknamed “The Shark” (a reference to his lack of facial hair as well as his wily political skills) have already upended a race expected to rely on a motley array of second-tier Iranian political figures. His close ally, former nuclear negotiator Hassan Ruhani, had previously pledged to quit if Rafsanjani ran; Ruhani is a sharp-elbowed politician who has been an early and consistent critic of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear diplomacy and economic policy. So far that withdrawal has not come, despite much Twitter speculation to the contrary, and other similar pacts among conservative contenders also appear to be fraying under the weight of a suddenly reconfigured competition.

The Rafsanjani wild card is only one novelty in a race replete with interest. The other aspirant whose registration on Saturday has electrified Iranian poll watchers is Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Mashaei, a close advisor to Ahmadinejad, has long been the focus of fierce clerical ire as a result of his eclectic religious and political views. He was forced out of a vice presidential slot in 2009 and is routinely scorned as the mastermind of a ‘deviant current’ that has infiltrated the Islamic Republic in an effort to undermine it. Mashaei’s ambitions have been telegraphed over many months through increasingly unsubtle efforts of Ahmadinejad to stack the deck in his favor, culminating in the tandem appearance at Mashaei’s registration. That move prompted a legal complaint against the president – either a quaint nod at legalism in a patently manipulated electoral framework or the first step in a process of silencing the unpredictable Ahmadinejad via intimidation or imprisonment.

The calculations of Rafsanjani, Mashaei and Ahmadinejad are compelling in their own right, and they will no doubt influence Iran’s future. However, the drama associated with them has diverted attention from the likely electoral landscape, which features a less thrilling but still significant roster of contenders. For several months, some speculation has centered on former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, a pediatrician by original training whose entire 32-year political career is the product of patronage by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Others have long fixated on Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who has assiduously restyled himself as a moderate, modernist problem-solver. Another dark horse to watch closely Gholamali Haddad Adel, a parliamentary leader and literature professor whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s powerful son Mojtaba.

The real heavyweight in the pack, however, is Jalili, who was virtually unknown beyond a small circle of the Iranian leadership until his appointment as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council in 2009. In leading the contentious negotiations with the international community over Iran’s nuclear program, he has personified Iran’s quixotic mix of defiance with occasional bursts of pragmatism. One of his early forays in the high-stakes talks featured a discursive lecture on the Prophet Mohammad’s diplomacy, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. But Jalili was also responsible for signing onto a Western confidence-building step in 2009 that was quickly disavowed by Tehran. He survived the ensuing outcry among conservatives unscathed, a testament to his primary patron, Khamenei, whose office he directed for four years. Of all the would-be aspirants for the presidency in this round, Jalili appears to benefit from an air of ordination, and already talk has emerged among other conservatives of withdrawing in order to bolster his competitiveness.

Setting aside the personality politics, the most astonishing, and important, dimension of the campaign is simply that we care at all. Four years ago, many observers – including myself – argued the blatant orchestration of Ahmadinejad’s reelection had all but extinguished the relevance of the electoral dimension of Iran’s convoluted governing system. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and many academics forecast that Iran was descending into a military dictatorship. So many of these predictions now appear off the mark, as external analysts and politicians all too often find when interpreting Iran.

Let’s be clear – the 2013 ballot will be rigged to a greater or lesser extent depending on how the campaign evolves, and the winner will undoubtedly benefit from unabashed assistance from the institutions, including the Guard. However, as the initial maneuvers of the 2013 presidential race underscores, politics in Iran remain competitive, unpredictable, and captivating. So stay tuned, and watch this space. One week from today, Brookings will be launching Iran @ Saban, a new blog that will focus on political and economic developments within Iran as well as the threats posed by its current policies and the strategic responses of the international community. The blog will showcase the deep bench of Brookings scholarship on the Middle East and issues such as proliferation, terrorism and, of course, electoral politics and the future of Iran.

Authors

Suzanne Maloney

Sequestration and U.S. Defense Spending: Healing the Wounded Giant

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:50:00 -0400

Sequestration cuts to the U.S. defense budget have started to affect military contracting and training. Such changes may be fine in the short term, but costly in ways beyond dollar figures in the long term. In his new book Healing the Wounded Giant, Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon focuses on the question of how much could be cut from the defense budget if done right. In this video Q&A, O'Hanlon provides examples of two areas where cuts can be made: ground forces and procurement of the F-35 combat jets. He also predicts what Secretary Hagel will propose for the defense budget and how it has the potential to help strike a fiscal deal.

Video

Sequestration and U.S. Defense Spending: Healing the Wounded Giant

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

How to Cut the Pentagon Budget Better Than Sequestration Does

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:16:00 -0400

A deeply flawed conventional wisdom is developing that despite warnings from former defense secretary Leon Panetta and others that the sky would fall if sequestration occurred, automatic spending cuts are not so bad after all. By this logic, not only should the cuts in defense as well as domestic “discretionary” accounts continue, but it would also be okay to implement automatic and across-the-board cuts in the next fiscal year, too, starting in October.

Yet the path we are on is far from acceptable.

While some of this year’s roughly $46 billion in defense cuts from sequestration reflect reasonable pruning, many of the reductions are not sustainable. Savings from policies such as dramatically reducing training for most military units this summer are not catastrophic if done once, but they cannot be continued without fundamentally jeopardizing military readiness.

Then there are savings that appear real but are not, such as deferred overhauls of major weaponry and deferred maintenance at bases. We can put off some repairs, but most will have to be done eventually — and may be more expensive if deferred. Then there are savings made on the backs of those with limited ability to make their voices heard: furloughs of civilian government employees top this list. In addition to being highly disruptive to government operations, these furloughs suggest that federal workers are second-class citizens (even as members of Congress can keep their entire paychecks for the year). Graduating students at public policy schools and other worthy individuals are being denied opportunities to work for the federal government due to hiring freezes.

Together, these temporary savings, faux savings and unfair savings represent at least half the $46 billion in cutbacks that the Defense Department is experiencing.

The military budget can be cut beyond the initial reductions from the 2011 Budget Control Act. But continued sequestration or reductions of comparable magnitude such as those resulting from the Simpson-Bowles proposals go too far. Such plans tend to make sweeping claims that, because defense spending remains reasonably high by historic and international standards, it can be cut much further. This reasoning is too vague for a world in which crises continue throughout the broader Middle East, U.S. forces remain engaged in Afghanistan, North Korea continues to nuclearize, and China continues its rise. It is time to get specific about further defense cuts.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Washington Post

The Kampala Convention: Entry Into Force

Chaloka Beyani — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:30:00 -0400

The world’s internally displaced persons (IDPs) number in the tens of millions; the majority of them are in Africa. IDPs are often profoundly vulnerable and must contend with homelessness, hunger, human rights violations and violence. For years, the African Union has sought to help mitigate the plight of IDPs and now with the entry into force of the Kampala Convention, they have formulated and adopted a legally-binding instrument that can do more to help this population. Chaloka Beyani, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, says that the convention will also promote good governance, peace, stability and security.

Video

The Kampala Convention: Entry Into Force

Authors

Chaloka Beyani

The U.S., China and Africa: Pursuing Trilateral Dialogue and Action

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 13, 2013
2:30 PM - 4:30 PM EDT

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

With six of the ten fastest growing economies in world, sub-Saharan Africa is attracting both American and Chinese investors. The growing importance of sub-Saharan Africa to the global economy has made the region a focal point for the differing policies of the United States and China. China recently pledged significant financing to Africa over the three year period from 2012-2014, while the U.S. looks to extend the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act ahead of schedule. Despite the opportunities and growth in the region, the U.S., China and Africa all face shared and separate challenges in the areas of security, trade, investment, foreign policy, and natural resource extraction and management.

On May 13, the Africa Growth Initiative and the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, with the Institute for Statistical, Social, and Economic Research at the University of Ghana and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, hosted a discussion to examine the relationships among the U.S., China and African states. This forum was the first in a series, which brings a balanced perspective to the examination of the challenges and opportunities for trilateral dialogue and action.

Video

The U.S., China and Africa: Pursuing Trilateral Dialogue and Action

Audio

The U.S., China and Africa: Pursuing Trilateral Dialogue and Action

The Egypt-Israel Peace Test

Itamar Rabinovich and Tamara Cofman Wittes — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The rocket strikes that a militant Islamist group recently fired from the Egyptian Sinai into the Israeli city of Eilat served as yet another reminder of how delicate bilateral relations remain two years after Egypt’s revolution. Terrorist activity could easily cause a crisis on the border, with the potential to trigger an unwanted confrontation that would threaten the peace treaty that normalized bilateral relations in 1979. To avoid such an outcome, Israel and Egypt must take convincing action now to uphold the treaty.

Last November, when hostilities erupted in Gaza, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi mediated a swift resolution, even providing a guarantee for the cease-fire with Gaza’s ruling Hamas. Morsi thus implicitly recommitted Egypt to upholding peace on the border and to playing a constructive role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This boosted confidence in Israel that the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s ruling party, would uphold the 1979 peace treaty. But Morsi has not explicitly endorsed peace with Israel and has avoided direct engagement with Israeli leaders.

Preserving peace is in both countries’ interests. The attack on an Egyptian army outpost in the Sinai last summer, in which armed militants killed 16 soldiers, demonstrated that terrorism threatens Egypt just as it does Israel.

In this volatile environment, reverting to a confrontational relationship with Israel would be extremely dangerous, inviting the risk of another disastrous war. Upholding the peace treaty with Israel would have the opposite effect, enabling Egypt to pursue its goals of consolidating the military’s authority at home and enhancing its influence throughout the Middle East.

Read the full article »

Authors

Publication: Project Syndicate

The Road to War : Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

Marvin Kalb — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2013 280pp.

Not since Pearl Harbor in 1941 has an American president gone to Congress to request a declaration of war. Nevertheless, since then, one president after another, from Truman to Obama, has ordered American troops into wars all over the world. Why no declarations of war? Why has it become so comparatively easy for a president to commit the nation to war? What is Congress’s responsibility? Where is the press? In The Road to War, esteemed journalist and author Marvin Kalb explores these crucial and timely questions.

Rather than formally declaring war, presidents have justified their war-making powers by citing predecessors’ “commitments,” private and public. Many have been honored, but some have been betrayed. From Vietnam to Israel, presidential commitments have proven to be tricky and dangerous. For example, presidents pledged the United States to the defense of South Vietnam; yet none saw the need for a formal declaration of war, and few in Congress or the media chose to question the war’s provenance or legitimacy until it was too late. In the end, the U.S. lost 58,000 Americans—and the war.

Given the extraordinarily close U.S.-Israeli relationship, based on secret presidential assurances, it is remarkable but true that a number of Israeli leaders feel that at times they have been betrayed by American presidents. Kalb, while explaining the origin of this sense of betrayal, raises a profoundly important question: Isn’t it time for the United States and Israel to negotiate a mutual defense treaty? Wouldn’t such a treaty help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and provide American reassurance for Israel in the nuclear standoff with Iran?

The word of a president can morph into a national commitment, the functional equivalent of a declaration of war. Therefore, whenever a president “commits” the United States to a policy or course of action, with or increasingly without congressional approval or national debate, it is time to raise the yellow flag--watch out!

Praise for The Road to War:

“Every road to war is ultimately also a tragedy. Kalb’s concluding chapter, however, offers a timely and important ray of hope: a defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel in the context of a fair peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians might avoid not just one but even two wars. President Obama should read this chapter.”
—Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser

“Marvin Kalb has written a fine book that should be required reading for everyone who wants to be president because it underlines what every president seems not to know in the beginning—that it is much easier to get into war than to get out of it. Terrific insight, carefully researched and clearly written.”
—Bob Schieffer, CBS News

“Kalb raises important questions about the unchecked power of presidents to take the nation to war. His provocative proposal for a U.S.-Israeli defense treaty will certainly add to the debate about the future of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East.”
—Graham Allison, Harvard University

Brookings: Programs - Foreign Policy

Welcome to Iran @ Saban

Authors

Why Iran's Presidential Election Matters

Authors

Premier Li Keqiang of China Goes to India

Authors

John Kerry’s Indian Image: Moving American Policymakers Beyond "Pro" and "Anti" India

Authors

Iran Press Report: What to Make of the Glut of Presidential Candidates?

Authors

A Statesman’s Forum with H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey

Event Information

Video

Audio

Transcript

Event Materials

Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan's U.S. Agenda

Authors

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

Author Commentary and Media Appearances:

Praise for Bending History:

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Martin S. Indyk

Kenneth G. Lieberthal

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Lessons and Context of the Navy’s First Carrier Drone Flight

Authors

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Comeback Kid

Authors

Pragmatism May Drive Israeli-Turkish Ties

Authors

American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

Event Information

Video

Audio

65 Years After 'Catastrophe,' Palestinians Have Little to Cheer About

Authors

And They’re Off: The Campaign for a New Iranian President Has Begun

Authors

Sequestration and U.S. Defense Spending: Healing the Wounded Giant

Video

Authors

How to Cut the Pentagon Budget Better Than Sequestration Does

Authors

The Kampala Convention: Entry Into Force

Video

Authors

The U.S., China and Africa: Pursuing Trilateral Dialogue and Action

Event Information

Video

Audio

The Egypt-Israel Peace Test

Authors

The Road to War : Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marvin Kalb

Downloads