dr. andrew exum
TRANSCRIPT
DR. ANDREW EXUM: Folks, are we ready to go? As I understand it, we’re the
last thing between you and the beer. So we will – we will begin this panel and get you up to
the cocktails momentarily.
We’ve got an exciting last panel for the day. We’re going to be talking about the
Middle East to close out the conference, the conversations about the Middle East rarely end,
so I imagine that we’ll just table thing at the end of about an hour and head upstairs.
Let me introduce our distinguished panelists for the last panel. To my far left, Kim
Ghattas. Kim is, besides being a fellow alumnus of the American University of Beirut, is
also the BBC Stat Department correspondent. Before that, she was a BBC correspondent in
Lebanon.
To my near left, I’ve got Mike Singh. Mike is the managing director of the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Before that, he was a senior director for the
Middle East and during the Bush administration on the National Security Council.
To my near right, Tamara Wittes. Tamara just recently left government as deputy
secretary of – deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and is now head
honcho at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute. It’s important people here.
And then finally, the distinguished Bruce Jentleson, my co-author on a recent report
just recently issued by CNAS, distinguished professor of public policy at Duke and an
alumnus of both – the State Department during both the Clinton administration and the
Obama administration.
So I think we’ll begin just by talking about how this administration has respondent
to the Arab Spring and we’ll turn to Kim to begin with. Kim’s been the rarefied position of
having a lot of experience in the region, but having also seen the U.S. government try to
respond to the challenges over the past 18 months. Kim, what have you seen, if you could
give the current administration a grade, what would it be and what do you think they’ve
struggled with, and what do you think they’ve done well?
MS. KIM GHATTAS: I think it’s very difficult to give a grade today because I
think we’re seeing a lot of movement still in the region, but I can tell you that what I have
seen, which has been fascinating for me, traveling with the secretary of state around the
world on her plane, is seeing real people trying to devise America’s foreign policy often on
the fly in very complicated situations, when nobody really has a script to read from.
So when we talk about whether this administration has been able to adapt to the
changing reality of the Middle East, I think I’ve seen that in ways small and big. And just
to give you a small example of what I have seen, we were in Paris on March 14th of last
year. The Bahrainis – you know, Bahrain was erupting. It was – there was a lot of violence
there. The Saudis and the Emirates had sent troops in that morning into the country. We
were in Paris to discuss the crisis in Libya. There was talk about a resolution for a no-fly
zone over the country. Syria was erupting. Yemen was in chaos. There was a crisis in
Pakistan. There was an earthquake in Japan.
That’s a lot to handle for any human being. And I think I was impressed to see how
that all came together on the plane and the small way in which I saw the administration
adapt this. Obviously, on the plane, officials are trying to get briefing notes from the
building to see how they’re going to address issues when they get to the ground, whether
it’s in Paris or Tunisia or Egypt, where we also went. And they were getting briefing notes
that were, you know, the standard talking point. But they were not adapted anymore to
what the secretary of state was trying to do on that trip. And so on the plane, they were
trying to update those talking points because they knew that the young people in the region
that the secretary was going to address in town halls, that the ministers she was going to talk
to, they wanted to hear something different.
And the other in which I saw the administration adapt, which to me was very
interesting to see because I remember growing up in Lebanon during the civil war, where
we listened to American officials very closely because every word they said could have an
impact on our tomorrow. And I – I was impressed to see that this administration
demonstrated a better appreciation of the impact that its words has on what people then do
on the street.
And I think you saw that with President Obama, who, you know, was basically
listening to the people on Tahrir Square, and letting them kind of set the agenda. And I
know you can then accuse the administration of leading from behind, but I think it is also
important to listen to what the people on the ground want. And that brings me to another
point, which is I think there is a willingness, a new willingness to listen to different voices
in the region, not just people who are going to tell you what it is you want to hear or what
you believe.
I don’t want to go on too long, but I will close with one point. I know we’re here to
talk about how the U.S. is adapting to a changing region, but I think that part of the picture
today is how the world is changing. And I think that although the region is going through
upheaval and it is trying to find its voice and its future, what they have not done so far
themselves is adapt to a changing America and a changing role of America in the world.
And I think that their perception of American power is disconnected from reality.
DR. EXUM: Well, how do you see that change in the Middle East, for example?
How are you seeing that changing role for America?
MS. GHATTAS: Well, I think that the United States is trying in the region, but
also in other areas of the world to give ownership to the people of their own issues.
America isn’t, as far as I can tell, going to run the world, let’s say, the way it has in the past
if you subscribe to that narrative. And I think that, again, some people will accuse it of
leading from behind, but I think it is very important for people in the region, in the Middle
East or other regions to take ownership of their problem and not expect America to solve it
for them.
And you know, I had one very interesting conversation with a Saudi official in
Tunisia, when we were back in the region on a second visit to Tunisia for a conference on
Syria. And the Saudi official was ranting about how this conference was useless because it
was all about diplomatic talk and what was needed now was action. I said, okay, so what
are you willing to do? And he said, well, I don’t know, but you know, something needs to
be done. Okay, well, do you want to arm the rebels? And he says, well, you know, well,
maybe yes. Somebody needs to arm the rebels.
And I said, okay, but – and what are you doing about it? And he said, well, you
know, we need to remove Bashar al-Assad. He’s an occupier. He’s an occupier. This is an
illegitimate rule. It has to be removed. I said, okay, so are you sending your jets over? I
mean, you’ve been armed to the teeth by the Americans. Are you willing to do it? He says,
we’re not a superpower. America’s a superpower. They can do it.
So I think while the United States is trying to get people to step up to the plate and
do things for themselves and then help them, whenever they can or in whichever way they
can, I think that the region is still, you know, lagging behind that reality that even though
they’re taking control on the street, and they are in many ways taking control of their
destiny, they’re still expecting the United States to do things that, A, the United States
doesn’t want to do, and B, maybe hasn’t ever been able to do, because I think there is a
distorted – there’s always been a distorted perception of what America is capable of.
DR. EXUM: Right. Tamara, does this sound familiar? As you’ve dealt with these
issues? Actually Kim gave a very sympathetic portrait of the State Department especially
trying to deal with this change in region. What were some of the broad analytical
challenged that you faced as you tried to, first off, just diagnose what the problem is and
then much less, try to prescribe new policy options to address the region.
DR. TAMARA WITTES: Sure. Well, I mean the first thing I’d say is, Kim, I
think you’ve hit on something very important in talking about this very pervasive myth of
American omnipotence, which I actually think has existed in the region for a long time, but
there is no question that as events moved very quickly in a lot of places at once, there were
outsized expectations that came along with that, and certainly both when I was in
government and since I’ve left government, I’ve had people from the region say to me that
the United States threw Mubarak under the bus or the United States caused the victory of
Islamist parties.
And in both cases, that’s I think an inappropriate analysis. And so I think
continuing to engage in dialogue in order to adjust expectations and to adjust expectations
about one another’s roles and to make space for governments in the region, particularly as
they emerge, fully elected governments in the region to take ownership of what’s going on
in their own countries and more broadly in the Middle East.
You ask a good question about challenges because this is – this shift that took place
in the Middle East and that is taking place and will be taking place over a number of years
in the region is historic in nature. And U.S. foreign policy, like the foreign policy of any
major country is a very large ship with a lot of mass. So turning that ship to adjust the
changing circumstances takes time.
DR. EXUM: Often many hands are on the tiller as well.
DR. WITTES: Yes. Yes. I guess I would point to a couple of things that I think
are on – are going to be ongoing challenges. Noting, first, though, that the shifts that were
underway in the region have been building for a long time and I think that there were a lot
of us, even well before the Arab Spring, recognizing that and working to try and adapt
policies, even before the Arab awakening emerged. But the first is the sort of long run
versus short run dilemma. And this has been there. It was true when Mike was in
government on this issue of political reform in the region and it’s still true today. And you
see so many, many documents describing the relationship between stability and political
reform in the Middle East that say, well, in the long run, stability requires reform, in the
long run. And indeed, the report that you just issued said that.
But I – you know, the problem is that in government there are always short-term
imperatives that can easily trump the long run on any given day for any given meeting
agenda. The short-term is going to take precedence. But the thing is the long-term, when it
comes to stability and reform in the Middle East, the long-term is here now. It actually
landed on our doorstep in December of 2010. And so this long-term, short-term dichotomy
is really not the right construct for thinking about the policy challenges that we face.
Now, saying that and recognizing it intellectually is one thing. Implementing it
every day in policy terms is something else. When there’re protests going on, when people
are being shot at, then the long-term imperative of political reform becomes the short-term
crisis of the moment. But it’s equally important, I think, to be focused on these issues when
there are less dramatic things going on, when a new parliament is debating law and media
freedom, when a transitional government is issuing decrees, allowing the military to arrest
civilians, when electoral rules are being debated.
These are the quieter things, the process things that don’t grab headlines, but that are
really, really important when it comes to the long – longer-term outlook for stability and
change. And so, you know, the challenge for the U.S. is to be in there, paying attention
every day and not ignoring those smaller signals, whether they’re good signals or bad
signals along the way.
I think the other big thing gets to a point that Kim made, which is what we say
publicly and what we do privately. And I think Kim is very perceptive. We were paying a
lot of attention to signals coming from people on the ground, from the activist community,
from those who were watching and commenting online, knowing that that’s a select group
as well.
DR. EXUM: Did you find yourself being held accountable by different voices than
before?
DR. WITTES: Absolutely and the challenge is precisely that there are multiple
audience. There is, you know, the governments in the region. There are the publics in the
region. There’s the public here. There are other governments in the international
community and you’re weighing your words against all of those. But you know, what we
say is very, very visible and it’s often criticized, saying too much, too little, not the right
tone. What we do in private diplomacy is often equally important to what we say, but much
less visible. And I think, you know, the discussion needs to be always about looking at
those public statements as a tool just like any other policy tool. Is it going to get the job
done? It’s not a statement for the sake of a statement. Is it going to move the ball forward?
Is it going to have an impact on actors whose behavior you want to impact?
DR. EXUM: Well, Mike, I imagine that watching this from outside of the
government must have been on the one hand exhilarating, but on the other hand, you must
have found yourself wanting to have been back in government while this change had been
taking place. Maybe not the sleepless hours, but certainly the turmoil that the region’s
going through in a lot of ways, this is what the Bush administration had hoped for, this type
of democratization. If you were back in government, if the Bush administration had been
dealing with this, how would policy had been different? Would you have done anything
differently, or do you largely look at what the Obama administration has tried to do and say,
yes, those decisions make sense?
MR. MICHAEL SINGH: I was happy not to be back in government – (laughter) –
when all this was going on. I mean, I think that – look, I think that on a deeper plane in a
sense, we – coming into this, even before the Arab Spring, before the Arab uprisings, there
were some long-term strategic issues to be grappled with. I mean, we were very focused in
the last decade on Iraq and on the war on terror. And in a sense, we were already turning
the page on those things before the Arab uprisings.
And at the same time, there’re some big structural changes happening. You know,
we have the rebalancing or the pivot to Asia. We’ve got the economic crisis and the
questions about our own kind of economic commitment around the world and Europe’s
economic commitment, declining defense budgets, this transformation in our own domestic
energy policy, the diffusion of the terrorist threat. So big changes which in a sense demand
a big strategic review. And you know, we had sort of a Cold War paradigm in the 1990s
that was sort of shifting and in 2000s has shifted towards Iraq and –
DR. EXUM: Bruce, you and I should start one of those strategic reviews –
MR. SINGH: You should do that. I think that’d be a great idea.
And then into all of this is thrown the Arab uprisings, which I think objectively quite
difficult to deal with. And I’ve tremendous respect, obviously, for a lot of the folks – for
many of the folks who were there in government, trying to grapple with these things all at
the same time, but the fact is I don’t think that the administration was very well-prepared
when these things happened because of some early policy choices.
I don’t think, for example, our alliances in the region with traditional allies, Saudi
Arabia, Israel, so and so forth, where they could have been to sort of prepare – to sort of
respond, let’s say.
DR. EXUM: Do you think that tactical missteps in managing those alliances early
in the administration cost us when the Arab Spring began. Is that – is that where you’re
going at?
MR. SINGH: I do think so. I think that we were over focused on, say, the Israeli-
Palestinian issue. I think we weren’t focused enough on the issue of reform and democracy
in the region. And as the Arab uprisings broke out, well, then you’re in a very difficult
position to start doing strategic reviews and reformulating policy. You’re trying to react
and cope with what’s happening understandably so.
And I think that was a dynamic that in a sense the administration was left with. I’m
not sure that we even still have a clear sense of what is the strategy going forward. You
know, my sense, from the administration coming in, was that there was a clear sort of
rejection or reaction against the Bush policy in the Middle East. And what replaced it,
though, was in a sense a return to more of a Cold War paradigm, doing things the way we
used to them, the centrality of the peace process, the kind of close relationship with some of
these autocratic regimes, rather than thinking forward in a sufficient way about a new
strategy, as opposed to kind of going back to what came before. And I think that’s what we
need to do now. Given all these structural changes, given the Arab uprisings, it’s time for a
new strategy in a sense that looks forward rather than backwards towards what we used to
do.
DR. EXUM: Well, that’s a great segue to Bruce. Over the past eight months,
we’ve been working on something – (inaudible). What – as we’ve been thinking about,
okay, if the assumptions need to be questioned, if it’s time to reevaluate U.S. interests in the
region, and if the strategic context just changed, what are some ways in which U.S. policy
should change going forward?
DR. BRUCE JENTLESON: Yes, I mean, I think it’s very interesting because I
think there’s a sense coming from the whole panel. There were forces at work. There were,
you know, manifestations of fundamental changes in the region, even before the Arab
Spring started, which is actually when we started discussion with Kristin (sp) and others.
And I think – I just want to say that working on this project and sharing authorship with Ex
was really, really a great experience, as well as Melissa Dalton and Dana Stuster, who also
were our co-authors.
And so we sort of started this saying how does one get out of just a silo basis or just
a short-term basis and try to at least integrate things – not that you’re going to come with a
master strategy and say, oh, here’s my how to book, and on page 23 it says do X, but with
some sort of flexible framework so that everything wasn’t ad-hoc. And so we called our
approach in this sort of – in this report strategic adaptation. And we sort of meant both
words. You know, one was adaptation. You know, there’s nothing – it’s not the decline
that’s debated, but it’s simply saying that you try to adapt the changing strategic realities. It
makes perfect sense to figure out what your strategy is, to understand what the playing field
is. And some of that is adapting to realities, as well as trying to shape those you can.
And the other part was trying to think strategically in this integrated way, fully
acknowledging that the short-term is the short-term, but to get out of it the best you could,
the tyranny of the short-term, and maybe a greater degree of consistency across issues.
So two or three are the points we make here just to kind of put them on the table and
not get into all of them. We’ve not even developed them. We sort of argue here looking
forward. One is we sort of argue what we call a differentiated strategy towards political
Islam. And it starts from the recognition that political Islam is here to stay. It manifests
itself differently, different magnitudes, different forms in different countries, indeed many
different ways within countries. And conscious of at least one of the lessons of the Cold
War, particularly in the third world, where the United States, many of our major errors were
lumping together everything we saw out there that was a social movement that was
nationalism and sort of the monolithic – in the context of the monolithic bipolar competition
with the Soviet Union.
And so we needed to really begin to differentiate between different forms of
political Islam and those were/are antithetical to our interests and values, we needed to
fundamentally work against in a variety of ways, including those that were terrorists. And
there’d be some that were maybe not our first choice in life, but that you try to work with,
whether it’s to coexist or to find areas of cooperation. And that was a very sort of realistic
view in order to try to pursue American interests given certain realities.
Second one is this whole question of the balance between democracy or values or
principles and security interests. And it’s – those old adages in American foreign policy
that goes back to the one of he may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B., which historians
debate was it really about Nicaragua in the 1930s or whomever. And on the other side, the
John Kennedy one about those who make peaceful change impossible make violent
revolution inevitable.
There’s always been tradeoff there. They’re not a dichotomy. They’re kind of a
continuum. But we kind of argue here that it’s not even what’s the best choice. It’s
unsustainable. And this was I think your sense, Tammy, of being on the doorstep, to think
that you – to not recognize that the road to security really lies through political reform.
Short-term, medium-term, long-term, they kind of all come together. Sometimes we do a
hedging of options, say let’s just wait. Problem is a lot of times your options get more
narrow over time. And so we talk about some specific cases in the report, but to
fundamentally recognize it’s a strategic rationale for being much more pro-political reform.
I won’t even call it being pro-democracy because political reform is going to take a lot of
different forms in these countries.
And it’s not just the value, oh, we have to be for our principles, but there is a
strategic, as well as a principled rationale.
And a third one is to recognize, I think, and this kind of addresses Mike’s point,
maybe from a little bit different perspective, that our alliances, particularly in the Gulf, are
in transition, that we have a greater mix of convergent and divergent interests with countries
in the region. To the extent that it concerns responding to Iranian aggression in a variety of
forms, not just the nuclear issue and its implications, we have a very much of a shared
interest.
But frankly, when it comes to playing sort of the Iran card, as a way of deflecting
issues of political reform or other divergent interests, our interests are more divergent than
they were. And the sense of a healthy alliance is not necessarily just to get in the face of
people publicly, but to recognize the scope and limits of shared interests and to try to
transition your alliances in ways that adjust to that, which leads to some force posture and
other kinds of issues. But I think that that’s the reality. And if we don’t recognize it, we’re
actually more likely to have more problems with our traditional allies and not fewer.
DR. EXUM: Thank you very much. I think at this point, we’ll transition to
questions and answers a little bit early. If you are watching this live on the internet, first
off, we apologize for the pop up ads, second off – (laughter) – Dana Stuster will be
addressing – take – fielding questions over Twitter. Dana not only fields questions over
Twitter and gets yelled up by Kurt Campbell in the opening of the conferences, but is also a
co-author on this report and so has done a great work for us while here at the CNAS.
So we’ll begin questions. Is that Billy back there? Go ahead.
Q: I think one of the great questions –
DR. EXUM: Billy, just – I know who you are, but go ahead and introduce yourself.
Q: My name is Billy – (inaudible) – I work at Third Way. And one of the great
questions we see in the media a lot and then debated amongst policymakers is the
relationship between conservative Islamists and support for terror. So you know, we
support democracy. We support pluralistic societies. When Hezbollah participated in the
political process in Lebanon, we said, oh, we’re just kidding, we didn’t mean that kind of
democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood, which is the historical roots of Hamas, is now
participating in Egypt. But in our country, we have people who have a very literal
interpretation of religious documents and they get to do things like become the president
and – can you talk about in the Middle East the relationship between the conservative
Islamists and that long jump to starting blowing up people in the street?
DR. EXUM: Well, let’s – you talked about that tension between violent political
Islamists and democracy and maybe – we had a great case study during the Bush
administration, which were the elections in Palestine that led to the election of Hamas. I’m
going to put Mike on the spot here. What – how did the administration look at the tradeoffs
when it looked at – okay, you have elections in the Palestinian territories, but Hamas, which
a foreign terrorist organization, antithetical to U.S. interests, hostile towards our allies, the
Israelis as they come to power, and yet, we want to support the rule of law, support the
Palestinian constitution? What’s the tradeoff there?
MR. SINGH: I was working on Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt at the time, but – so
everything around there. I think – I’d say a couple of things. Look, I think you need to
distinguish between – you do need to distinguish between conservative Islam and terrorism.
Hamas was – is a terrorist group, not just a conservative Islamist group. And so that’s an
important distinction. And I think if you look at what President Bush at the time – he – he
spoke very openly about the fact that the elections had revealed amongst the Palestinians a
dissatisfaction with their government and a desire for something different, for
accountability, for transparency, something which one party rule had not produced over the
years.
And that’s understandable. It’s an expression of democracy. And yet, clearly
dissatisfaction and unhappiness with the policies and the approach of Hamas. I think that –
my own feeling on this question, the connection between conservative Islamism and
support for terrorism, we can’t divorce the idea of ideology from the question of terrorism.
Terrorism isn’t just about tactics. It’s not just about what – about the actual activities. It’s
about the ideology which feeds terrorism.
And my concern about – you know – in a sense, it’s understandable and it’s
predictable and I think many people in this room probably predicted that groups like the
Muslim Brotherhood would do well in elections in Egypt after Mubarak because they were
seen as the resistance to this regime. They had credibility amongst the population. Yet, at
the same time, I do think that there is in the ideology that these groups espouse, although
they’re quite different from one place to another, a lack of respect or understanding for civil
liberties, religious freedom, for example, which is threatening to democracy.
And you know, this idea that – this idea that people can’t be free to choose, for
example, that women can’t be free to participate in society, the economy, I think is part of
that ideology which I think is not – which is dangerous and which is not conducive to
democracy. And so I think that we need to make sure we’re standing up for those values
very clearly and very vocally, regardless of who’s in power in these countries.
DR. EXUM: Tamara, do you want to add?
DR. WITTES: Yes, well, I guess a couple of points. Number one, I have to
underscore my ex point that it’s essential that you differentiate between Hamas and
Hezbollah, on the one hand, and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt on the other.
Hamas and Hezbollah, not only are they organizations that engage in terrorism, but they’re
fundamentally – their participation in the political process, their ability to be democratic
actors, set aside their views on American foreign policy, their ability to be democratic
political actors is fundamentally undermined by the fact that they are militant movements.
And the proof of that is that both of them, after promising that they would never turn
their weapons against their own fellow citizens, did, when they saw outcomes in the
political process that they didn’t like, they used their weapons as veto over the political
process. That’s the problem with having armed groups participate in democratic politics.
So that’s a category that I think is distinct. The issue – the broader issue of Islamist
groups, even very conservative Islamist groups, first, we have to recognize that there’re
very conservative Islamist groups that have participated in electoral politics in the Middle
East for years. In the Gulf, in Kuwait, in the Kuwaiti parliament, in Morocco, in Jordan on
and off over the years. So it’s not a new phenomenon. But as Bruce said, there was a
challenge facing the Obama administration of differentiating amongst different types of
Islamist groups engaged in politics.
And the president actually did this in the Cairo speech, in June 2009, where he laid
out three criteria, three principles that from an American perspective he thought were
important if you wanted to be regarded as a legitimate democratic actor. You had to reject
violence as a way of achieving your goals. You had to respect the rules of the democratic
game even if you lost. And you had to respect the equality of all citizens, including women
and minorities. Those three principles have stood and continue to stand in administration
policy in all of its engagement with Islamist groups in the region. And since the Arab
awakening, as the administration has expanded its engagement, those three principles are
the basis for the conversation.
DR. EXUM: Kim, those sound like pretty coherent principles. Is that the way –
when you look at it from an outsider’s perspective, does it look as coherent from – and
especially from a regional perspective, do the peoples of the Arabic speaking world see that
as coherent?
MS. GHATTAS: Yes, I mean, I agree with Tamara and one other point that I
wanted to make is very often when people here look at the region, I feel that there is still a
kneejerk reaction to the way people look. And I know this may sound controversial, but I
think that what people have to accept and what this administration is trying to come to
terms with is that these are conservative Muslims. I mean you’re not going to change them.
They wear veils. They have beards. It’s just how they are. It doesn’t mean that they
necessarily espouse radical ideology. And I think it’s very important to engage with them
so that they also have the means to stand up to – against groups that are trying to subvert the
democratic process.
I think possibly one of the mistakes that was made when it comes to that issue
during the Bush administration is a desire to push for elections at all cost. And we saw it
not only in the Palestinian territories, but also in Lebanon, after 2005, when Lebanon had its
own popular revolution. And sometimes – I’m not saying you shouldn’t push for elections,
but sometimes you need to accept that the ground simply isn’t ready and you need to give
people the time to organize properly, because elections by themselves are meaningless if
they produce a result that you’re then going to discredit.
So I think you need to give the people the means to organize and hold those
elections at the right time with the right tools. And these are some of the questions that are
coming up now – I see you smiling –
DR. EXUM: Well, no, in the Palestinian territories, we had NDI and IRI and doing
a lot of – a lot of voter registration, a lot of party organization. The people took advantage
of those programs. It wasn’t Fatah.
DR. WITTES: But it was a focus on process over democratic values, over the
values that undergird democracy.
DR. EXUM: Right.
MS. GHATTAS: And that brings me to something that I’ve observed as well with
this administration, their willingness to engage with groups like the Muslim Brotherhood,
because they are part of society. And I think that if you want to adapt to this changing
region, you have to take it as it is and work with the people that you can work with. You
know, if you don’t want to work with Hamas, there are other people that you can work with.
But going back to something that Mike said, you know, this administration, he said, didn’t
focus enough on reform at the beginning. I think that possibly this was a wise move from –
if I look at it from my perspective. The region just didn’t want to listen to America
anymore saying you have to have democracy.
So I think that to leave it alone for a little while was probably not a bad idea. And I
think that, you know, in the end, the people who took to Tahrir Square or who are now
fighting the Assad regime in Damascus, have shown that they have also the same desires,
but they need – you need to give them a bit of room to get there.
DR. EXUM: But on something organic. It came from that –
MS. GHATTAS: Exactly.
DR. EXUM: – not from the states. Yes, go ahead.
DR. JENTLESON: Just a quick – in relation of this. I think what you were saying
was very important because it’s a practical matter. There’s really the question of kind of
what are the preconditions for engaging with these groups. And I think the notion of armed
groups in electoral process is obviously one of the red lines. But between the diplomacy
and our own domestic politics it’s like so how many statements coming out of the Muslim
Brotherhood do you kind of focus on and say this is the real Muslim Brotherhood, right?
And there is a tendency, I think, frankly, on all sides of this debate for people to
choose their state and say, see this proves my point. And I think some of it is going to take
some very steady diplomacy on our part, trying to manage our own domestic politics with
this, because the notion that we can have a whole long list – you really need to look like us
very much before we can engage with you – that will never work and it will be
counterproductive to our own interests. And so it’s going to take some, you know, looking
comprehensively, understanding what our red lines are, but frankly being focused and not
having a whole of lot of those, just sticking to those that are really fundamental to our
interests and values.
DR. WITTES: Well, and I’ll just say as someone who spent a lot of time up on the
Hill over the last year, explaining to members of Congress and their staffs how the Obama
administration was proceeding with this engagement. Bruce is absolutely right.
DR. EXUM: We’ve got some staffers here. Mike, I do want to get to a few more
questions.
MR. SINGH: But let me respond to one thing, Ex, because – (laughter) – I feel like
I need to say something in response –
DR. EXUM: I’ve lost it.
MR. SINGH: – to this last comment, which is, look, I think that, you know, we can
begin by saying it’s not all about the U.S. and our policy and then say that democracy – the
democracy outbreak here, the sort of Arab uprisings have to do with what we did or didn’t
say in 2009. The question is, I think, did people in this region themselves want political
reform and democracy? I think the answer is yes. Look, in the last decade, we weren’t
telling people that they should have democracy. They were coming to us. I would meet
with groups of activists; other officials would meet with groups of activists. This is what
they wanted. And they wanted America to follow through on what we said.
And frankly, I think that it’s not only something that people in the region wanted. It
is, I think, I agree with Bruce, something which is patently in our interest to see political
reform. And so the question is, you know, we always do best, I think, when we have a clear
sense of our interests and we pursue them. And I think this is a case where we didn’t, to
me, sufficiently apprehend that political reform is important to our interests and to the
people in the region.
DR. EXUM: Ma’am.
Q: Hi, my name is Kristi Kaufmann, I’m the executive director Code of Support
Foundation, which is a nonprofit dedicated to bridging the civilian-military divide. I’m also
a 11-year Army wife, so the question I’m going to ask is tactical in nature, but I think
strategic in its implications. This is the first time, as far as I know, in the history of this
country that we’ve had these repeated deployments. Michele talked earlier about the
importance of not only being the strongest military, but the perception that we are the
strongest military.
And then, Kim, you were talking about kind of the –you know, the overestimation
of our capabilities. I guess my question is, having lived in the weeds for the past 11 years,
my husband is battalion commander at Fort Bragg, and seeing what’s going on with that
small 1 percent of the population, does that have an impact, is there conversations that are
happening in the Middle East about the impact on the actual personnel? And how would
that might – how might that inform policy?
DR. EXUM: Sure. Bruce, let’s go to you because this is something we write about.
We write about this drawdown that’s in the Middle East that’s taking place. You want to
expand on that?
DR. JENTLESON: I think it’s really –it’s a crucial issue. I mean, when you see
the data and the studies that come out about the strains that’s put on military families, you
know, and people in the military, from everything – you know –family issues, suicides,
PTSD, and stuff. I mean, we have asked our military for over a decade now to do enormous
service and really, really difficult. And I think it is reflected to a certain extent in public
opinion. If you look at American public opinion polls now, there is a sense that this country
still faces some threats and dangers out there and we need to be able to be prepared to use
force when we need to.
But frankly, I think there’s a concern about being too trigger happy. And I think
that that’s sort of this war weariness that’s out there. And some of that, I think, frankly is
some empathy, and some of that may well be some guilt from certain segments of the
society that haven’t had their children or their families go through this sort of thing.
I actually think that’s healthy, frankly, for civilians, so that they’re not so ready to
pull the trigger, to understand that there are real personal costs. At the same time, you
know, people in the military would always believe that if there’s vital national interests at
stake, they would serve.
In some ways, I think we need to sort that out, including the way we talk about it in
our politics. But I think the country has some sense, again, out of a mix, I think, of guilt,
thanks, and empathy, that we really need to be very careful about what we do next in terms
of military commitment.
DR. EXUM: But of course, the conflicts in Iraq – the conflict in Iraq is drawing
down. The conflict in Afghanistan, at least the direct U.S. role will be drawing down over
the next few years. These conflicts have been largely run out of the Persian Gulf. So
you’re going to see fewer and fewer military activities and fewer and fewer military
deployments to the Persian Gulf. Does that affect our relationships with the countries in the
region, Tamara?
DR. WITTES: I don’t see how it couldn’t, first off because there’s a symbolic
element to U.S. military presence, but more practically, on a day-to-day level, when you
have that kind of presence, you have a lot of conversations going on at a lot of different
levels to facilitate it and enable it and make it work well.
And so as that presence wanes, those conversations narrow as well. And so – you
know – and this is something that you guys talk about in your report is the need to think
through how – how the broader redeployments affect our force posture in the Middle East
and how that affects our relation.
DR. EXUM: Affects our leverage.
DR. WITTES: How it affects our leverage, but also how it affects our relationships
and can we think now about other things we want to do to shore up relationships that are
important, to add –to change the nature of these relationships so that they have different
dimensions. And this, I think, gets to something broader about U.S. foreign policy in the
Middle East in this period. And I think it’s something that the Bush administration
struggled with, that this administration has been working on quite consistently, as well,
which is how do you shift overall the perception of what America’s doing in the Middle
East, from being about national security and defense, to having a positive agenda. You
know, that the U.S. is in the region to do something together with the people of the region
that both see a positive a value to it. And I think the Arab awakening presents tremendous
opportunities for the United States in that regard, but it’s something that in order to seize
those opportunities, we have to do what Kim was talking about, which is listen.
DR. EXUM: Aaron O’Connell.
Q: Hi, Aaron O’Connell, from the Naval Academy, History Department. I wonder
if any of you would draw any connections between the invasion and occupation of Iraq and
the Arab Spring that of course was an invasion undertaken partly in the hopes that it would
spark a broader transformation and a toppling of autocratic or liberal regimes. That
certainly has happened. Was the invasion and occupation helpful hurtful, is there a third
characterization you would prefer?
DR. EXUM: Mike, I’ll give you the first crack at that. (Laughter.)
MR. SINGH: I think it’s tough to draw direct lines between the two, frankly. I –
DR. EXUM: (Inaudible) – for a softball here.
MR. SINGH: No, look, I think it’s tough to draw direct lines between the two. I
think that when you look at the – when you look at the fact that you had a revolution
happen in Tunisia and then Egypt and it spread, you do get a sense that there is kind of an
Arab polity out there and they pay attention –people on one part of the Arab world are
affected and do pay attention to what’s going on in the other part of the Arab world, yet the
outcomes and how things progress clearly is dependent on sort of local conditions and local
culture and so forth.
And so I think we should be conservative about drawing too many direct lines. Yet,
at the same, sure, I mean, I think that – as I said, that clearly there are regional effects to
what happens. And the fact that you see people having elections, you see leadership
changing, and so forth, I think is an important message. Now, I’m sure that there’s also –
there’s also obviously a strong negative reaction against the U.S. sort of invasion of Iraq,
but –
DR. EXUM: I noticed. (Laughter.)
MR. SINGH: Well, look, I think – so I think that – that’s why I think we should be
careful about drawing these direct lines. But – but in any case, I think that what happens in
one part of this region affects what happens in the other parts of the region.
MS. GHATTAS: I think that there is an indirect – there was an indirect impact. I
think that the invasion of Iraq showed people in the region, A, the change was possible, and
B, that doing it the way it was done had potentially disastrous consequences for the country.
I think that in the region a lot of people were wishing that the tanks would keep rolling
down to Damascus or that perhaps it would encourage people in Saudi Arabia to take to the
streets, or that there would be some change. I mean, I was in the region. I traveled around.
I heard that from people.
But afterwards, they thought, hmm, actually, maybe this is not the way that we want
to do it. So my sense from talking to friends in the region and from my reporting around
the Arab world was that the desire for change had been bubbling for a while under the
surface. And people were actually starting to get organized. Way before, you know, the
revolution erupted in Tunisia, I spoke to a young Syrian activist who told me of things he
was doing in 2007, when I was reporting on the country and I had no sense that that was
actually happening. They were challenging the authorities in really incredibly brave ways,
and it was going unreported.
And I think that – I mean, it’s difficult to draw those conclusions or to draw those
parallels, but I do wonder sometimes whether the fact that this administration was a bit
more hands off on the reform agenda gave people in the region the room they needed to do
it themselves, because they knew it was possible. They knew that that was something they
wanted.
DR. EXUM: Tamara, briefly.
DR. WITTES: Very briefly. I think that the underlying trends that drove the Arab
revolutions were building for years before 2011. And if you want more of what I think on
this, you can look at the book that I wrote on this in 2008, okay? But – but I just wanted to
jump on Kim’s point about this administration’s approach and did it create some space.
And you know, I’m not going to argue that that was a conscious strategy –
MS. GHATTAS: Yes.
DR. WITTES: What was a conscious strategy, though, was a shift in our efforts to
advance democracy in the region, rather than doing a lot of it from the bully pulpit. It was
doing a lot more with the grassroots and shifting a lot more of our focus to supporting
indigenous civic activists and indigenous NGOs, who were, as you said, already getting
mobilized.
DR. EXUM: Dana, I think there’s – got lots of questions in the back. I promise
I’m going to get to you. We’ve got a question from the internet machine, though. Dana,
you said that Twitter had something for us?
Q: There’re a lot of really good Twitter questions that we’re not going to, but this
one is from Austin Pryce (sp) and he asks, has foreign military assistance provided a good
return in the region and has it provided credible leverage for the United States?
DR. EXUM: Great question. Bruce, do you want to take a shot at this, because we
deal a little bit with security force assistance and –
DR. JENTLESON: It is a really good question, very focused question – as we got
a focus on policy. And my sense is – and I think we even had some disagreements among
ourselves, working on this report – my sense is it’s mixed. You know, for example, to the
extent that there were some arguments that some of the weapon sales continued to Bahrain
recently were because they might have a jobs effect.
The real question is who has leverage over whom. When they’ve been used in
certain ways to try to professionalize militaries and provide for their external roles against
aggressors in the region, I think it’s been effective, but I think if you take the question to the
level – deeper, which is which particular types of sales, and what timing, and with what
possible linkages to other issues.
DR. EXUM: Let me ask – I’d like to get the opinion of either Tamara or Mike on
this because one of the arguments that you’ll hear is that, oh, well, you know, people talk
about the U.S. relationship with the regime in Bahrain, for example. But if we didn’t have
that relationship, if we didn’t have that close military relationship, then what happened in
Bahrain – the crackdown – would have been all that much more violent. But, of course, it’s
difficult to prove a negative.
So when you’re trying to talk about – it’s difficult to say, oh, because of this X
didn’t happen – when you’re talking about this with Congress and you’re trying to justify
U.S. arms sales to the region when some of those weapon systems – and this has been an
issue with Bahrain – when you’re talking about these issues with the Congress or with the
American people who are concerned about these sales, how do you sell the U.S. leverage?
How do you explain what we – what do we get out of these relationships?
MR. SINGH: Look, I think it’s obvious to everyone that these aid relationships
have both pros and cons, right? I mean, there’s no yes or no answer to this question. I
think that what’s important here is that there’s a sense of common interest. There’s a sense
of shared interest – why are we doing this, why are we giving you this assistance. I think
that the leverage part of it is probably oversold. It’s better when there’s actually a sense of
mutual interest not I’m doing this because you’re paying me to do it, because ultimately the
amounts aren’t large enough to sort of steer a national strategy.
So I think when that connection gets lost between mutual interest and the aid is
where you run into trouble. And I think that’s, for example, what we’ve seen in Egypt
where the connection between we’re actually pursuing a common agenda here and the aid
relationship has become in a sense severed.
DR. EXUM: That’s a great example.
The gentleman right here. Yes, sir.
Q: Hi. My name is Greg Aftandilian. I’m with the Center for National Policy. My
question deals with U.S. policy in terms of how we should approach these countries in
transition in the Middle East.
My sense is that this is a very, very delicate time, particularly a country like Egypt.
They’re going through these internal struggles between secularists and also people who
support political Islam. I think the best thing that we could do is to just stay out of it and let
them figure it out, because whatever we do is going to backfire.
Some liberals in Egypt in fact complained that when U.S. officials have come to
Egypt over the past several months, they’ve gone to see the military, then they’ve gone to
see the brotherhood and not the liberal camp. But, of course, if U.S. officials just went to
the liberal camp, then there will be a conspiracy in the minds of a lot of people that we’re
against the Islamists. So I would just caution our approach to a lot of these things.
And this leads me to my other point is that maybe at this particular point, our major
thrush should be to help the economies of these countries, particularly things like youth
unemployment, things that could bring real tangible benefits and to get out of the political
game just because I think there’s so many sort of roadblocks. Thank you.
DR. EXUM: Yes. That’s great. I’m going to put a little bit of a point on your
question because, of course, Egypt does matter for the United States, especially Egyptian-
Israeli security. That peace arrangement has been a cornerstone of regional stability over
the past 30 years. As you look at this – the gentleman teed up one of the real dilemmas that
the United States has dealing with Egypt as it’s in transition, but we can see escalating
tensions in the Sinai. We can see Israeli distrust of who Egypt’s future leaders might be.
What is the role for the United States? And I hate to put you on the spot with Egypt
specifically, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.
DR. WITTES: Look, I think you’re absolutely right. Egypt is a crucial player
because of its geostrategic position, because of its history, because of its cultural impact, its
size, the size of its economy. I mean, there’s a host of reasons why even – Greg, if you
were correct in your hypothesis that there’s nothing that the U.S. could positively do to
affect the situation, still the stake we have in the outcome is such that we have to at least
think about what we shouldn’t be doing or what we could do to avoid negative outcomes for
our interests.
So I don’t think disengagement is a realistic posture, A. B, I don’t think it’s a
posture that actors on the ground in Egypt want, whether they’re Islamists or the SCAF –
the military council that’s been running the country for the last year – or the liberal political
actors or the revolutionaries on the street, all of them want the United States to be engaged
in various ways, often contradictory ways. But none of them want the U.S. simply to get
out, go away and leave us to fester.
Now, when it gets to the economic issue, I think it’s important to recognize that in a
situation this volatile, when there is a fundamental struggle for power underway on the
ground between these Egyptian political forces – economic policy is not apolitical. Our
economic assistance is not apolitical. Our investment, even private sector investment is not
going to be apolitical.
So I think there’s no way for us to avoid those dilemmas. I think we have to treat
Egyptian domestic politics with respect as domestic politics – messy, volatile, uncertain,
anxiety provoking, but domestic politics. And we have to deal with it with the same respect
that we would deal with domestic politics in any other country where we have relationships.
And we do this all over the world every day where we weigh, oh, if I meet with this party
leader, then I have to meet with that party leader. We need to do it in Egypt too.
On the security issues, I think the United States also has a crucial and very important
role to play in being a point for information sharing, in the role that we play in the Sinai, in
the MFO, monitoring the peace treaty there, working with both sides on counterterrorism
issues, and all of that continues day to day and needs to continue.
DR. EXUM: Let’s – we’ve got a lot of hands. Ma’am. Yes, right along the aisle.
Yes, ma’am.
Q: First of all, thanks to the distinguished panel for your time and your insightful
remarks. I really appreciate your mentioning about the United States nowadays should not
only consider the changes taking place in the region and need also take into consideration
about the changes taking place all across the world as a whole. And I also really like the
concept of a strategic adaptation.
And, actually, my question is just related to some recent changes taking place in
Turkey. Actually, just two days before, in the Shanghai Corporation Organization Summit,
Turkey became a dialogue partner in SCO.
So I’m wondering, will this to some extent change the geopolitical map in the
Middle East and what shall we expect in terms of the United States strategic adaptation?
Thank you.
DR. EXUM: Bruce, when you look at Turkey’s changing role in the region, it
seems like they’ve shifted from an orientation westward to looking south and east in a way
that they might not have to the same degree earlier. How do you view shifting Turkish
politics affecting the regional dynamics?
DR. JENTLESON: Sure. I mean, I think that there’s been a great debate in
Washington now for the last couple of years, is Turkey going east instead of west, and my
argument in this all along has been it’s neither. Turkey is pursuing its own national
interests. It has a greater sense of what that is. And you look at some of the economic data
about some of its national interests – I’m sorry – its economic interest relations being in the
east. It’s also interesting that its economic relations with Israel have largely survived these
other downturns.
But I think it’s very important the way we see other countries. It’s not east of west
force against us. A lot of it is there are many more countries out there pursuing their own
national interest.
So to the extent that some countries could associate with the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, it’s a bit like the grand strategy panel this morning and some of the points
Anne-Marie Slaughter was making about there are different organizations out there and not
all of them are being sort of (founded ?) as pro or anti-U.S.
I think China has important interests in the Middle East. They’re not all zero sum
from a U.S. perspective. I think one of the crucial issues – I know a dialogue I had with a
Chinese colleagues a couple of months ago in Abu Dhabi in which we were talking about
Syria and other issues, and started out with sort of the position of, we don’t believe in
intervention and sovereignty, then actually came to the position that China’s interest is in
stability in the region. And to a certain extent, that actually may mean – which could mean
working with others on Syria, working with others.
So I think the notion of trying to find common ground with as many international
actors as possible may make our diplomacy more complicated, but it’s one of the realities
we have to deal with in this world where there are all these other interests and looking for
those intersecting points with Turkey, China and others in terms of what our national
interests are.
DR. EXUM: Kim, if I could turn to you, having grown up in a state that used to
belong to the Ottoman Empire, how do you – (laughter ) – how are Turkey’s ambitions and
Turkey’s new orientation – how is it perceived in Beirut, for example.
MS. GHATTAS: I mean, I have to caveat my answer by saying that I’ve been in
Washington for the last four years. But –
DR. EXUM: It doesn’t stop anyone in Washington from – (inaudible). (Laughter.)
MS. GHATTAS: Right. I think that people in the Arab world, as far as I can tell,
look at Turkey the way anybody would look at a rising power, with some apprehension,
some suspicion, particularly because of the history of the Ottoman Empire. And there’s
been a lot written in the Arabic press about neo-Ottomanism and Erdogan walking around
the Arab world as if he owned it. There is some resentment towards that. They don’t like
that attitude.
But I think going back to the question and the point that Bruce was making about
Turkey, I agree with Bruce. I don’t think that Turkey is turning east or west. I think that
they’re trying to figure out how they fit on the global stage. And I think that they have tried
to become a more important partner to the United States. They’ve been trying to find their
role in the region. And they’ve had a rocky road. I mean, when you look at 2010, with
their efforts to broker a deal with Iran, with what happened with Israel, they’re trying to
figure out the limits of their own power.
But I think that what this administration has done – which has been very interesting
to observe – is work very hard to keep them on board in a way to manage them, because
they go off in very different directions. And it’s not always successful, but it’s a smart way
of – I wouldn’t say managing the rise of those powers, but of keeping them on board and
working together towards a common goal.
And I just want to go back to something you said at the very beginning. You said I
sound sympathetic to the State Department. Mostly I’ve developed an appreciation of how
difficult it is to do these things. And I think that that is something that people around the
world or people even in the United States don’t always have a grasp on it. They don’t
realize the challenges when you’re trying to devise policy and you’re on your e-mail every
30 seconds. But I do have my frustrations still –
(Cross talk.)
DR. EXUM: Yes, Mike. Go ahead.
MR. SINGH: I just want to address the China bit of this since we’re talking about
the SCO summit. I think it’s important to look at this also from the China angle, which is
that China is very interested in Turkey and China’s very interested in the Middle East.
And so when we talk about something which I image came up earlier here – the
rebalancing, the pivot to Asia and so forth – I think it’s important to remember that these –
you can’t think of this in terms of Middle East goes down and Asia goes up like this
because, obviously, China gets – we get very little of our oil, for example, from the Persian
Gulf. Very little of it comes through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s not true for China.
And so when you go to Beijing and if you’re talking about focusing more on our
relationship with China, well, Turkey, and Iran, and these issues come up very prominently.
And so there’s not really a tradeoff or any kind of mutual exclusivity there.
DR. EXUM: I think what we’ll do here is we’ll – we’ve got a lot of questions still.
I think we’ll bundle maybe three and we’ll just try to have folks pick from them. Sir.
Q: I just wanted to come back to – Bret Balsmith (ph) from MBN (ph). I want to
come back quickly to the issue of economics. I totally agree that economic support isn’t
apolitical, but, at the same time, when you look at North Africa, I think that the lack of
economic growth there represents a real threat to solidifying the gains that have been made
over the last year and a half. So when you look at rising expectations, yet, also 20, 25
percent unemployment, lack of basic infrastructure, market, the question becomes – I don’t
see a realistic path forward institutionally and politically in these countries that isn’t
accompanied by economic growth. So how do we get there, what’s the strategy?
DR. EXUM: Great. Thank you.
Sir. Go on, Bill. Go ahead.
Q: Michael Perseki (ph), recent Rutgers alumnus. On the issue of Israel and its
worries about advancing Egypt on top of rhetoric coming from Iran and Turkey, how do
you feel the U.S. can best convince Israel that we’re still concerned about their security, but
some of these events are beyond your control so you have to chill out a little?
DR. EXUM: That’s a great question. I just got back from Israel and there’s a lot of
anxiety about especially the Israeli relationship with Turkey but also what’s taking place
among their near neighbors.
One more question, sir. Yes, sir. Right there. Get down.
Q: Hi. My name is Gabby Cohan (ph). I was previously with the Avascent Group.
And my question is if Russia continues to obstruct a coherent international response to
Syria, what are the viable policy options available to the administration ? And which one of
those options does the panelist believe the administration should take?
DR. EXUM: Well, we’re almost out of time here. (Laughter.) I’ll tell you what.
We’ll just do kind of a grab bag, address what you want to and if the gentleman’s question
on Syria is not addressed, I’ll hold one of your response cards.
MS. GHATTAS: I’m happy to try that one.
DR. EXUM: Kim, do you want to – go ahead.
MS. GHATTAS: Sure. I’ll start. I think that – I get asked that question a lot on air
when I’m on television discussing American policy towards Syria. And my answer is
always, if I knew what the viable solution was, then the administration would be doing it. I
mean, it’s not that simple. I think that’s a cliché. It’s a sort of – stating the obvious.
But I think that the choices are all bad. There are no simple solutions. And for me
personally it’s been very interesting to watch this because I actually think that the
comparisons that are being made with Bosnia are probably accurate. But I’m comparing it
to the war in Lebanon, where things just developed organically and people tried to – outside
players tried to –
DR. EXUM: You’re talking about the civil war.
MS. GHATTAS: The civil war. Yes. Sorry. The civil war – 50 years of civil war,
where after a year was a ceasefire and people were talking about peace and then it went on
for another 14 years.
I think that when it comes to Syria, what has been interesting for me to observe first
of all is, again, this administration’s ability not to simply freak out because there are
possible al Qaeda elements in the country.
I mean – I’ve had some interesting conversations with officials who say that if the
outcome of any sort of action that removes Assad from power is a country where it’s not
exactly a democracy, if there are guys in power that we don’t agree with but at least Assad
isn’t there anymore, then maybe we can live with that. And I think that is really an
incredible change in American attitude towards the region. So I think that that is very
important for people in the region to realize as well.
But I think that what this administration’s had trouble with is not only handling
Russia but also handling the Syria opposition itself. And that goes back to a point that I
made at the beginning. We have to help ourselves so that the Americans can help us if we
want them to help us. And I think it’s been a very delicate balance for American officials to
work in terms of the statements that they make when it comes to Syria, because you don’t
want to make it sound like the cavalry is coming, because the cavalry ain’t coming. But, at
the same time, you want to make sure that the Syrian opposition – the rebels – continue
fighting for what they believe in.
So that’s what I would say about Syria. I don’t think there is a clear outcome. I
don’t think anybody knows but I do think that the key is probably Russia. And the Russians
are talking both to the opposition to see whether they can find someone within the
opposition that they like enough that they could contemplate Syria without Assad, but
they’re also talking to people around Assad himself to see whether there’s someone there
who could take over. But I don’t think anybody has the answer, not even the Russians. I
don’t think the Russians know exactly what they want beyond making life difficult for the
Americans, which is – (laughter).
DR. EXUM: Mike, I’m going to give you a chance to respond to that. I’d also just
briefly – I’d also like you to maybe address issues related to Turkish-Israel tensions. These
are two of our closes allies in the region. How do we manage the deteriorating
relationships?
MR. SINGH: I’ll briefly solve all the problems.
DR. EXUM: Please.
MR. SINGH: All right. Look, I think that on Syria, I’m not sure I agree that
Russia is the key to this. I think that it’s true that all the options that we have on Syria carry
risks and downsides, but so does inaction. And I think that the core task of a policymaker is
to choose among them and is to – but more importantly than that, more importantly than
just saying, here’s your menu, let’s choose, if there are downsides and risks to particular
actions, how do you mitigate those things?
You know, one obstacle obviously to getting greater diplomatic support has been
Russia’s veto at the U.N. Security Council, Russia’s refusal to go along. We’ve been
working on mitigating that. There are obviously obstacles to the other courses. You know,
arming the FSA, arming the Syrian rebels, for example. You know, if the obstacle is well,
we’re not sure where who they are, well, then let’s get more information about who they
are. Let’s vet them and so forth. You know, if the Syrian opposition is fragmented, let’s
help them unify.
I think that we are not powerless in this situation. The international community is
not powerless and we need to work to mitigate those downsides, overcome the obstacles so
that our options start looking better. That’s the job of a policymaker in my mind.
Turkey-Israel – I don’t see Turkey-Israel relations frankly improving in the near
future I think because of the strategy that Turkey is taking and also domestic politics in
Turkey. And this gets to the question of Israel and its feeling of insecurity.
And I think here my – since we’re in a lightning round, my very brief answer is, you
know, the security relationship with Israel has to be about more than mil-to-mil
cooperation. It has to be more than here’s the list of things we’ve sold the Israelis. There
has to be a sense that the alliance goes beyond that, that there is political support, that there
is a meaningful dialogue about the challenges in the region that goes beyond just this sort of
uniform brass coming together.
And I think that that’s what we need to have here is a conversation that’s deep, it’s
meaningful, and it’s conducted at the political level between the U.S. and Israel about these
problems.
And on the economic question, look, I agree entirely with Tamara. You can’t have
– you’re not going to have political stability without economic improvement and vice versa.
You know, it’s a chicken and egg situation. The two have to progress together. And the
decisions which have to be made on the economy of, say, Egypt are political decisions –
you know, reducing subsidies, reducing spending, changing the exchange rate policy.
These are very political decisions. In fact, there’s – I don’t think there’s anything more
political than such decisions because these are the issues that ordinary people care about the
most.
And I think that this is an area where we can provide advice, where we can provide
nudges and so forth, where we can provide support. And we have to have a clear sense of
the direction we’re recommending and our allies are recommending these countries go in
and help them to make those difficult decisions.
DR. EXUM: Tamara, wedged in between the normal pictures of the British royal
family on the Daily Beast this morning was some commentary from you on Syria.
DR. WITTES: Yes. In fact, you and I began this panel at 6:30 a.m. this morning
on Twitter.
DR. EXUM: That’s exactly right. You know, you talk for a more – more robust
U.S. engagement, but I didn’t really get a sense from you what that was. You mentioned
maybe arming the rebels, but that’s just one option. What does a more robust U.S.
engagement in Syria look like? What is the appropriate policy course of action the
administration should be pursuing?
DR. WITTES: Okay. Well, this may surprise you. I’m going to align myself with
Mike.
MR. SINGH: Why would that be surprising? We’re both reasonable people.
DR. WITTES: In his comments on –
DR. EXUM: Even on the podium, you’re center left, he’s center right.
DR. WITTES: Right. Thank you. So the moderate and middle is meeting here, I
think, on the notion that the available options are unpalatable. They’re uncertain. They
carry a lot of risk. And so the challenge is: what can you do to shape the situation in ways
that are going to mitigate those risks and enhance the value of the options available to you.
And the fundamental point of the piece I published this morning is that this focus,
this fixation, frankly, on getting Russia to change its stance I think misses a lot of what’s
taking place on the ground. What’s taking place on the ground right now in escalation of
the level of violence, the nature of violence employed by the regime, the way in which the
rebels are evolving from an insurgent strategy to a strategy that’s about trying to take and
hold territory.
And I’ll let you get into that stuff. You’re the expert there, but I think we are
quickly moving to a situation on the ground that is hardening the nature of the conflict in
such a way that even if we could get past this Russian obstacle, the actors that would need
to agree to a settlement are going to be getting past the point where they could.
And so it’s important not only to focus on trying to move Russia, but looking at
these other things as well. Are there ways that the United States, even if we don’t want to
provide arms or training ourselves, are there ways in which we could engage with those
who are?
DR. EXUM: Answer that question. So what does that look like?
DR. WITTES: With the aim of helping them to be a more unified, more effective
force or talking to them about the strategy that they’re employing.
From an American perspective, the risks involved in letting the Syrian crisis burn
are risks associated with spillover. There are risks associated with chemical and biological
weapons in country. And so the quicker this comes to an end, the better.
And that being the case, I think we have to look very hard at ways that we can
increase pressure on the regime, on the pillars that support the regime, and I think we have
to look at the rebel activity on the ground as a vehicle for doing that.
DR. EXUM: Okay. So that’s the means, but not necessarily arming the rebels but
working with the rebels, make them more cohesive.
DR. WITTES: Look, it’s a means. Another means is dealing with the political side
of the opposition, but also with the rebels, with those who are engaging in violence around
the issue of reassuring minority communities because the pillars of the regime are not going
to crack if they’re convinced that the death of their entire community is going to be the
result.
So you have to – it’s not just a question of, you know, are they using their guns in
the right way? It’s also a question of what should – what else can they be doing to try and
bridge the gaps between themselves and some of those who are currently supporting Assad.
DR. EXUM: Bruce, I want to give you a chance to respond to what you’ve just
heard, but in addition, when we wrote this report, one of the things we really struggled with
was what does an economic strategy look like in the Middle East. And maybe in reference
to the gentleman’s question you can address that –
DR. JENTLESON: Sure. So quick comments on that. I think that the question in
the sense of the difficulties of economic growth and prosperity are exactly right which is
why we’re not going to see much political stability in any one of these countries for the
foreseeable future.
The only thing – the other thing I would say is as we prescribe or support or invest
in economic policies, we really need to stay away from the old neo-liberal model and sort of
the Middle Eastern version of austerity, because what’s really driving things there is both
the sense of individual dignity and jobs and economics.
So whatever economic progress is made is not just going to be on GDP growth rates,
but it’s really going to be on the distribution issue. So I think strategies have to be geared to
that.
Quickly on the Israel issue – you know, it’s very difficult – I think it relates to what
we were saying before and I think it’s a point you made, Tammy, about our role with Israel
and Egypt. You know, one of the red lines in our relation with any future Egyptian
government I think should be maintenance of the Camp David treaty. I think within that, as
we’ve been talking about, there’s going to be some pushes, and pulls, and some rhetoric,
and all sorts of things. And we have played a role. We played in the rescue of the Israeli
diplomats from their embassy, but I think we have to work with that.
I also do think I think – we haven’t talked much about the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, but I do think – well, that’s not everything. To the extent that progress is made in
that, it strengthens Israel both directly and indirectly given what else is going on in the
region.
Lastly, just on the Russia piece of this, it relates to what you said earlier, Kim, about
a lot of what you hear about, oh, yes, we really think things should happen but there’s that
third-person passive voice – (inaudible) – country.
You know, what I’d like to see is the whole Friends of Syria Group coming out now
and put some pressure on Russia through their own bilateral relationships, through their
own economic relationships, not cutting diplomatic relations but perhaps some withdrawal
of diplomats.
I think the Russians are holding a losing hand and I think fundamentally they know
it. Dissing the United States and harassing – (inaudible) – only get you so far. And I think
that they’re not the whole solution. But to the extent you can get movement in their
position, whether it’s through the Security Council – allows the Security Council to do
things that – (inaudible) – things their own relationships in Syria – I think that really helps.
And so I think that – I think the administration is going a little more public right
now with its disagreements with Russia, but it really is a classic issue for all those other
countries that are concerned about this. If the pressure – if it’s not just a U.S.-Russia issue,
there’s a greater opportunity for leverage to get the point to Russians that their interests are
being hurt by this position they’re taking.
DR. EXUM: Folks, I apologize. I know there are a lot of questions that didn’t get
answered. Dana, if you could just raise your hand real quick. Dana is going to be at the
cocktail reception. Anyone who didn’t get their question answered, just ask Dana. He’s got
all the answers.
We’re going to stay on the stage real quickly while Rich Fontaine steps up to the
mic and brings this to a close. But really briefly, give a round of applause to our panelists
here. (Applause.)
(END)