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Obama's escalation threatens Afghanistan; U.S. & Iran set stage for engagement (March 27, 2009)

Take Action: Urge Congress to Support a Diplomatic Surge in Afghanistan

Welcome to FCNL's Greater Middle East Diplomacy Update for March 27, 2009

"To put it simply, all key issues in the Middle East… are inextricably linked." Iraq Study Group, December 2006

Afghanistan: President's New Strategy Likely to Increase Instability

President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan announced today included constructive commitments to regional and international diplomacy and civilian development. But the president also committed the U.S. to aggressive new military tactics and a wider war that could easily spiral out of control and overwhelm the constructive elements of his plan.

The president's new strategy failed to reflect the most important insight on Afghanistan that he has expressed previously. Last month he said, "One of the things that I think we have to communicate in Afghanistan is that we have no interest or aspiration to be there over the long term." Although he said today, "We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future," he made no pledge to withdraw and made no mention of a timetable for withdrawal that the Afghan government has been calling on the U.S. to negotiate. He also ruled out an Afghan future that included any role for what he called "the uncompromising core of the Taliban," which he said must be defeated by force. Afghans will find little in the new strategy to convince them that the U.S. does not intend to remain in Afghanistan for the long term.

We at FCNL agree with the assessment of Afghanistan specialist and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Gilles Dorrnosoro, who argues that "the only meaningful way to halt the insurgency's momentum is to start withdrawing troops. The presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban." President Obama's new strategy that includes adding 4,000 troops to the 17,000 he has already ordered to Afghanistan shows no recognition of this fundamental cause of the growing insurgency.

FCNL wrote to President Obama on February 18 and outlined seven recommendations for shaping a new approach to the region. These included immediately ending aerial bombing and house raids, leading with diplomacy, investing in Afghan-led development and peacebuilding, and promoting security through civilian rule of law. This, rather than a strategy of military escalation, holds the best hope of stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Urge Congress to press the administration to rethink and rebalance its strategy in favor of diplomacy and development.

Afghanistan: Fourteen House Members Urge Obama to Reconsider Troop Increase

A bipartisan group of fourteen members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama March 16 urging him to reconsider his decision to send 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The signers said the "military escalation may well be counterproductive" to the aim of leaving behind a stable Afghanistan capable of governing itself. They cite a 2004 taped statement by Osama bin Laden that al Qaeda's goal was to "bleed America to the point of bankruptcy" in Afghanistan.

Seventeen national organizations including FCNL endorsed the congressional letter and urged members of Congress to sign on. Read the letter and the statement by FCNL and other organizations.

Afghanistan: Two House Members Warn against Reliance on Military Surge

Reps. Michael Honda (CA) and Raúl Grijalva (AZ) are warning the administration against pursuing an Afghanistan policy overly reliant on military force. The danger, they say, is that the Afghan war will become for President Obama what the Iraq war was for President George W. Bush.

Honda and Grijalva, both members of the House Democratic Progressive Caucus, are among the very few in Congress who have expressed reservations about the administration's Afghanistan policy. In an op-ed that appeared in the Chicago Tribune March 22, Honda and Grijalva argued that while the administration was right to focus on Afghanistan, and right to seek Iran's assistance in stabilizing the country, it was wrong to rely on a troop surge as the primary means to increase security. More resources should be allocated for economic, political, and social development, they said, including road building, a crop substitution and marketing program for opium poppy farmers, and tribal-based local governance and peacekeeping mechanisms. The two expressed hope that Obama would shift Afghanistan policy to "enable traditional [Afghan] mechanisms to carry a culture of peace forward."

Israel/Palestine: Poll Shows Strong U.S. Jewish Support for Pressuring Israel for Peace, Dealing with Hamas

The year-old "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street lobby released its second annual poll of U.S. Jewish opinion on the Israel-Palestine conflict and other Middle East issues this week. The poll showed remarkably strong support for vigorous U.S. efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, including by publicly criticizing Israeli policies and reducing military aid if Israeli actions block an agreement. Only on questions related to Gaza did the poll show strong support for Israeli military policies. Here are some of the poll's major findings.

• Seventy-six percent of respondents support a peace agreement that creates a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem and follows the outline of previous near-agreements negotiated at Camp David and Taba.
• Sixty-nine percent say the United States should work with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas to achieve a peace agreement.
• Sixty percent oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank (among donors to political campaigns, 72 percent oppose settlement expansion).
• Sixty-six percent support an active U.S. role to achieve peace that includes public criticism of Israel. Sixty-four percent support U.S. pressure on Israel to compromise for peace.
• Forty-nine percent support reducing military aid for Israel if it blocks an agreement from being reached.
• Seventy-five percent approve of Israel's recent military operation in Gaza, although only 41 percent believe Israel is more secure as a result, while 18 percent believe Israel is less secure, and 41 percent believe the Gaza operation made no difference to Israeli security.
• Thirty-nine percent support direct negotiations between the United States and Iran as the best way to address Iran's nuclear program, while 39 percent view sanctions as the best approach. If Iran were on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons, 41 percent would support and 40 percent would oppose a U.S. military attack on Iran.

See the full results of the March 2009 J Street poll.

Iran: Supreme Leader Rebuffing Obama Overture or Ready to Reciprocate?

Listeners to National Public Radio and readers of the New York Times or any other U.S. newspaper are likely to believe that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected President Barack Obama's dramatic March 20 video overture to "the people and the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran" on the Iranian holiday of Nowruz.

NPR's story on Khamenei's speech at a rally in Iran the next day and newspaper headlines around the United States-all based on a single report by the Associated Press-said that Iran's supreme leader "rebuffed" the president's outreach. Readers of Le Monde or any of the scores of international outlets that ran an Agence France-Presse story on the speech, on the other hand, learned that "Khamenei said… the Islamic republic is ready to reciprocate if US President Barack Obama changes the American attitude towards his country." A Google search suggests that no mainstream media outlet in the United States carried the AFP story, while the AP story ran virtually everywhere.

We at FCNL think that a full reading of Khamenei's speech makes clear that AFP got it right and that the AP lead is misleading at best. We see Khamenei's speech as a conditional green light to improved ties with the United States and as a step to prepare the Iranian public for a change in relations after 30 years of hostility and recrimination. It was also an implicit admission that changes were warranted in Iranian, as well as in U.S., behavior.

Obama said in his Nowruz address that his "administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties. . . . The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization."

Addressing an outdoor rally in the holy city of Mashad the next day, Khamanei recited a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States, but he added, "We do not have any experience with the new US President and Government. We shall see and judge. You change, and we shall change as well."

Read Jim Fine's memo on the Obama-Khamenei exchange.

Take Action: Urge Congress to Support a Diplomatic Surge in Afghanistan

President Obama's Afghanistan policy announcement today sets the U.S. on a dangerous new course of military escalation that will undermine efforts to scale back the conflict and increase stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan through diplomacy and development aid. Urge Congress to press the administration to rethink and rebalance its policy in favor of a diplomatic surge.