Situationships (February 9, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. It has been quite the week. Thursday’s oral arguments at the Supreme Court strongly suggested individual states will not be able to keep Donald Trump off the ballot this November; a unanimous decision announced on Tuesday by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected Trump’s efforts to dismiss indictments against him on the grounds of executive immunity. Meanwhile, the special counsel looking into President Biden’s handling of classified documents decided not to bring criminal charges against him but described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” All of which contributes to the likelihood that Americans will have a choice this November between a person whose character renders him manifestly unfit for the presidency and another whose age makes him appear to many Americans to be physically and mentally unfit. Bismarck once said that “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” We all had better hope he’s right.
Up Against the Wall
It is impossible not to begin, though, with the s***show that is Capitol Hill these days. So I will do just that. Congressional Republicans insisted on linking a new tranche of military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with money for a border wall, and a commitment to policy changes on immigration all in one piece of legislation. After four months of negotiations, the president and congressional Democrats gave them just about everything they demanded, and they balked anyway, attempting instead to leverage a standalone bill on support for Israel to split the Democrats.
The Republicans are clearly taking their orders on immigration from Donald Trump and have decided both his and their political prospects are enhanced this November if immigration is perceived as spiraling out of control on Joe Biden’s watch. They may actually be right, even if they are at this point to blame for not passing legislation that embodies most of their stated demands and would reduce the scale of the crisis if enacted.
You can call it cynical, mischievous, outrageous, Machiavellian, whatever. But it could well work, unless the president is able to persuade most Americans that he is not to blame for a situation that many voters understandably see as a major problem. He can take some unilateral measures to tighten the border, but even more important would be his speaking out forcefully and repeatedly, something he rarely does. I don’t like the Republican play—as it among other things violates the tenth political obligation: to put country before party or person—but I understand it, since it may turn out to be effective politics come November.
The same cannot be said for the Republican stance on aid to Ukraine. Here I am skeptical that there is a big political payoff. Indeed, if Ukraine were to suffer severe losses over time, something that cannot be ruled out in the absence of additional U.S. military aid, it could well come at a substantial political price for Republicans. Some Republicans seem to recognize this, joining Democrats on Thursday afternoon to break the filibuster on an emergency aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that does not include any provisions on the border. Still, they are in the minority of their party.
My guess is the Republican stance, again imposed by Trump, plays to the isolationism of the base, perhaps mixed with an admiration for Russia’s illiberal, white nationalist society. There may also be hope Putin intervenes in the 2024 election in ways that hurt Democrats. And there is yet again a desire not to hand President Biden a political win, even if doing so would be good for this country, not just the president, and not doing so would be bad for the nation.
All of which is to say we are seeing multiple obligations being violated here: not just the refusal to put country first, but also a violation of the call to respect norms, in this case that politics stops at the water’s edge. Real foreign policy disagreements are one thing, but this is not that. No serious person in the United States or the West could reasonably hope for a Russian victory over Ukraine. This is domestic politics, pure and simple, and it comes at a critical time when the military momentum is shifting somewhat in Russia’s direction after Ukraine’s underwhelming counteroffensive. (Putin’s interview this week with Tucker Carlson exudes confidence that things are breaking his way.) What Congressional Republicans are doing demonstrates recklessness and irresponsibility on a scale not often seen, and their behavior will have serious implications for this country’s credibility, and for matters of war and peace, not just in Ukraine but also in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Here is a link to my just-published piece in Project Syndicate that lays this out in greater detail.
Muddle East
Speaking of the Middle East, the United States has carried out multiple strikes against Iranian-backed groups and leaders in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, but has so far held off on attacks within Iranian territory. This is the right approach if the administration’s goal is to degrade these groups’ capabilities and restore a modicum of deterrence without triggering a major conflict with Iran. Defense officials have also communicated that this U.S. effort will be open-ended, which also seems about right given that the threat to U.S. troops in the region and shipping in the Red Sea is similarly ongoing.
Meanwhile, talks aimed at bringing about a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages continue with Secretary Blinken’s fifth trip to the region. There is the original U.S.-Qatar-Israel-Egypt proposal, which reportedly included a six week or so pause in hostilities tied to a phased Israeli hostage and Palestinian prisoner release, and a more ambitious Hamas counter-proposal that calls for a four-and-a-half-month ceasefire, a phased hostage and prisoner release, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and increased humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts, along with some sort of ill-defined pact to end the war.
Not surprisingly, Bibi Netanyahu immediately and publicly rejected Hamas’s proposal, maintaining that Israel is close to its goal of eliminating Hamas and that nothing less than the full demilitarization of Gaza is acceptable. He will therefore want the focus of any diplomacy to be on the initial package, not the Hamas counter, as the latter would constitute a return to the status quo ante October 7, i.e., it would leave Hamas intact and in control of Gaza.
But I also expect that he and his government will come under increasing pressure at home and internationally to accept something like the Hamas counteroffer in order to get the remaining one hundred or so hostages back and end the fighting. Continuing a large-scale Israeli offensive is more likely to result in the deaths of many more Gazan civilians than in the total elimination of Hamas, which is already reasserting itself in areas of the Gaza Strip where the IDF is no longer operating. Still missing from the Israeli government is any viable political component of a strategy, all of which means the Biden administration should at long last determine what it is prepared to do independently given the absence of anything approximating an Israeli partner. Mounting public criticisms of Israeli policy by the President and others are warranted but insufficient. The only thing near certain is that here, as elsewhere in the Middle East, peace is not at hand.
Progress
I want to note some rare good news, in this case coming from Northern Ireland. Both the place and the issue are special to me. I spent three years (2001-3) as the U.S. envoy to the negotiations and political process there, and then a decade later returned as an international mediator working with the principal political leaders of Northern Ireland to set up a process for coming to terms with the legacy of the past and the human consequences of the violence that claimed over 3,500 lives during the three decades of the so-called Troubles.
Speaking of the Troubles, they mercifully came to an end twenty-five years ago with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. But the peace is uneasy. Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided, unintegrated society. Most schools (reflecting their neighborhoods) are either Catholic or Protestant. Arrangements to deal with unresolved legal cases associated with the violence have been set up but have not yet begun work amid deep controversy and court challenges.
Brexit threw an additional spanner (wrench) into the works. It increased calls among those politically known as Republicans or Nationalists, who are predominantly Catholic, for a united Ireland so that the entire island of Ireland could remain in the EU. Making it worse for the mostly Protestant Unionists, who favor continued union with the UK, was the imposition of new trade arrangements (necessitated by the British leaving the EU) that appeared to separate Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
All of which brings us to this past week, where after a hiatus of some two years, the main Unionist party (DUP) finally agreed to return to the local assembly (Stormont) set up after the 1998 peace agreement. The DUP had left the government in early 2022 over the post-Brexit trade rules. Then, an election in May of that year brought an unprecedented result, with the main Irish Republican party, Sinn Fein, winning the largest number of seats. Now that the government is back, a Sinn Fein leader holds the post of First Minister—the first time in Northern Ireland’s 102-year history that a Unionist has not held such a position.
What brought the Unionists along last week was the announcement by the UK government of new trade arrangements that made the border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK sufficiently porous to reassure Unionists they were not being left outside. No one should assume this means that divisions in Northern Ireland have been erased; the past remains unresolved and the contest between those wanting to stay in the UK and those aspiring for a united Ireland will most assuredly continue. Peaceful, consensual unification with Ireland is not around the corner. But what we do have looks pretty good when compared to the Middle East.
It’s Complicated
This is the last edition before both the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day. I raise this as I came across a new word the other day: situationships. I gather it refers to relationships that are difficult to classify but involve less than full commitment. This left me wondering if those in them give eleven rather than a dozen roses or include a few empty wrappers in the box of chocolates.
But I digress. There is a serious side to situationships, as the term captures well a phenomenon common in foreign policy, namely, relationships between countries that are neither allies nor adversaries. Such relationships are among the most complicated, and in the realm of foreign policy arguably the most common. Even if we don’t always get it right, we know how to deal with foes. And the same holds for allies, even though again we often get it wrong or disagree. But there is not much in the way of a playbook for those that fall in between.
For example, India, now the world’s most populous country, with a fast-growing economy that provides strategic leverage vis-a-vis China but also buys oil and arms from Russia, allowing Moscow to avoid the full impact of sanctions. Or Turkey, an ally in name only and a democracy on paper but not so much in practice. Or Mexico, which is this country’s largest trading partner but won’t partner with us as much as we would like it to on crime, drugs, or the border. Or Israel, which is close to being an ally but is obviously carrying out a policy in Gaza that defies U.S. interests and undermines the long-term health of the bilateral relationship. Or Saudi Arabia, which is economically and strategically important to the United States, but a real problem when it comes to human rights and some of its regional undertakings. Even China could fall into this category, as it is a major trading partner but also a problem, or even a threat, geopolitically.
Like I said, they are neither adversaries nor allies, but something distinct. Many of the tools we would use against adversaries would be inappropriate, but many of the expectations we have of allies go unmet. Situationships, be they in the policy or personal realm, at Home or Away, can be hard. Happy Valentine’s Day.
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Richard Haass in the news
Monday, January 29: Colorado Mountain College Rediscovering Common Ground event
Tuesday, February 6: KPBS Midday Edition on American democracy (audio-only; begins at 31:58)
Wednesday, February 7: CNN International Amanpour on the Israel-Hamas war.
Article
Will Ukraine Survive? (Project Syndicate)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens