Questions (October 27, 2023)
Welcome to Home & Away. Most of the big news falls under Away, so I will start there.
Israel’s Question
As I write this, three weeks have passed since the awful events of October 7. Israel has been retaliating daily with hundreds of air strikes against known Hamas positions, but the central question is when it will introduce a significant ground dimension to its response and what that ground dimension will be.
Away from the physical battlefield the diplomatic battlefield is likewise heating up. Calls for a ceasefire are coming with increasing frequency, and will only gain steam as civilian casualties mount in Gaza. The UN Secretary General stated the October 7 attacks by Hamas “did not happen in a vacuum,” specifically citing “56 years of suffocating occupation” as either a cause or explanation for what took place. He went on to take issue with what he termed “the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” I mention his truly unfortunate remarks only to underscore that sympathy and support for Israel are fast fading and will all but disappear if Israel enters and stays in Gaza in a big way.
My own thinking on this has not changed, meaning that I continue to think Israel should attack Hamas given what it has done and could do, but that Israel would be making a major mistake if it undertook a large, lasting ground invasion and then occupation of Gaza. I believe it would fail to achieve its objective – eliminating or destroying Hamas – and in the process would increase Israel’s regional and international isolation and possibly a widening of the conflict. I also believe Israel has other, preferable ways of managing the threat that Hamas poses. I go into all this at length in a recent essay that led the review section in last week’s Wall Street Journal as well as in a forthcoming piece that will appear in the Financial Times.
Chinese Malaise
Before I leave Away for Home I want to mention two important articles. The first, by Evan Osnos in the New Yorker, is titled “China’s Age of Malaise” and, as the title suggests, puts forward a critical take on Xi Jinping’s China. Osnos, who lived in China for nearly a decade and left just as Xi was taking power, is one of the most trenchant observers of the country. Osnos goes so far as to say “To spend time in China at the end of Xi’s first decade is to witness a nation slipping from motion to stagnation.” He even asks whether Xi’s China can escape the contradictions that doomed the Soviet Union. The essay provides a stark contrast to Osnos’s book Age of Ambition, which he wrote about the pre-Xi era.
Osnos makes clear what has changed in China. “Year by year, Xi has rescinded the deal—space for loyalty—that Deng [Xiaoping] and his generation made with their people. He broke the compact first with the political class and then with the business community. Finally, during the pandemic, he seems to have alienated vast reaches of the Chinese public, in ways that are only beginning to be truly visible.” The result is that increasing numbers of China’s best and brightest and wealthiest are voting with their feet and their wallets and leaving the country. This trend will add to China’s economic headwinds; less clear is the answer to the question of what all this will mean for how China acts beyond its borders.
Speaking of China, Foreign Minister and Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office Wang Yi arrived in the United States this week (for those less familiar with the structure of China’s party-state, Wang is the country’s senior-most foreign policy official). His visit provides another opportunity for high-level exchanges between the two governments. It also prepares the way for talks next month on a wide range of bilateral, regional, and global issues between Presidents Biden and Xi when everyone expects the latter will travel to California for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting with leaders of 21 countries. For the record, this is APEC, not to be confused with AIPAC, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee.
American Power
The second article worth highlighting, “The Sources of American Power,” appears in Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, with whom I remain connected. It is by Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor. Asserting that the post-Cold War era is definitely over, the long article is at its most persuasive when it makes the case for alliances and “fit for purpose partnerships” and what Sullivan describes as “the self-reinforcing latticework of cooperation.” It is less so when it advocates for a larger governmental role in the economy, defends the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and underestimates (as it does in the original print edition of the piece, less so in the updated online version) the potential for instability in the Middle East.
Speaker Not So Easy
As for Home, the news (in addition to stronger-than-expected economic growth figures and yet another horrific mass shooting) is that House Republicans have finally settled on Mike Johnson as the new Speaker. It is difficult to feel much in the way of relief as it was so hard to get to this point. And just as important, we cannot be sure just where we have arrived as the new Speaker is a fourth-term congressman who enters the job with little experience but considerable political baggage, i.e., he is an election denier, some would add a climate denier, and someone who opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights. The MAGA crowd got its man; less clear is why the relative pragmatists and moderates in the House Republican conference folded rather than use their leverage in ways the extremists did when they ousted Kevin McCarthy and voted down several would-be successors.
Going forward, the real question is whether Johnson will be able and willing to work with Democrats on passing the $105 billion aid package centered on Ukraine and Israel, crafting a comprehensive immigration policy, dealing with the deficit and debt, and avoiding government shutdowns. Or in the parlance of a certain book, will the new speaker be open to compromise, value norms, promote the common good, respect government service, and put country before party? Again, all sorts of good questions; we’ll know the answers soon enough.
Time Out
I know there is a great deal going on that is serious, but it remains important to try to find a way to escape every now and then. For me that means sports. The World Series begins tonight in Texas (but fortunately not in Houston, where the hated but talented Astros play) as the home team Rangers take on the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team few predicted would get this far.
And in the sporting equivalent of the cycle of life, just as baseball nears its close, the NBA season (men’s professional basketball for those who have better or at least other things to do with their time, such as watching Suits) got under way this week. The New York Knicks did everything but defeat the Boston Celtics Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. In case any of you were wondering, 2023 marks 50 years since the Knicks last won the championship. Alas, it does not appear they will be breaking that streak any time soon.
Finally, there is fall golf. It is a great time to play. Here in the northeast the air is cool and the colors vibrant, plus there is that special feeling that comes with not knowing whether this will be the last round of the year before the intense cold comes. What is more, this weekend promises to be one with no rain, at least until Sunday. Not having to ask about the weather is a question I will not miss.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Tuesday, October 24: MSNBC Morning Joe on the Israel-Hamas war (audio-only; begins at 11:56)
Thursday, October 26: MSNBC Morning Joe on U.S. approach to the Israel-Hamas war (audio-only; begins at 36:12)
Articles
The Goal for U.S. Diplomacy With Israel: First Calm, Then Peace (Wall Street Journal)
Podcasts
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.