Weather or Not (October 11, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. I am just back from Germany, where the mood is unsurprisingly downbeat given that the economy is shrinking, the political leadership is uninspiring, and the society is experiencing difficulty assimilating several million immigrants who have settled in Germany over the past decade. For these reasons and more, the far right has been gaining ground.
If centrist governments are to stand any chance, restoring meaningful economic growth is essential, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. (Growth has been lagging for some time, as Europe’s share of global GDP is less than half of what it was in 1960.) The European Commission has proposed a path forward in a recent report on European competitiveness spearheaded by former Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, but finding the necessary funds and building political support in Germany and Brussels for the needed policies remains a long shot.
Fateful Choices
As for the Middle East, Israel’s focus has shifted from Gaza to Lebanon and Iran. There are two debates worth noting. The first involves Israeli war aims in Lebanon now that Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated and its military capabilities much diminished. One goal would be to negotiate a ceasefire with Hezbollah, one that may be available given that Hezbollah has reportedly agreed to withdraw its forces from the border and dropped its demand for a ceasefire in Gaza as a prerequisite. This would allow 60,000 Israeli citizens to return to their homes in the north, but it would not decisively eliminate Hezbollah as a political and military force in Lebanon or the potential threat it poses to Israel—a threat that could grow owing to Iran’s ability to provide support to the group via Syria.
The substantially more ambitious war aim would be to try to end Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon and with that the “state within a state” situation that has plagued the country for decades. Theoretically, this could enable Lebanon to again become sovereign in practice as well as in principle. Doing so would be desirable, but it would also be far more costly and difficult to achieve—if in fact it could be achieved at all—given Hezbollah’s remaining military capacity, its sway among segments of Lebanon’s population, Iran’s readiness to help it recover, the weakness of the Lebanese state, and the fact that Israel’s army is already stretched thin with the fighting in Gaza and the West Bank. Plus, given Israel’s unpopularity in the region and the harm its operations have inflicted thus far on Lebanese civilians, it may be inadvertently heightening Hezbollah’s long-term appeal amongst the Lebanese. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be leaning in this more ambitious direction, but as is often the case in this life, the best may prove to be the enemy of the good enough and the possible.
The second debate concerns whether—and if so how—Israel ought to respond to Iran’s decision to fire more than180 ballistic missiles its way earlier this month in retaliation for Israel’s actions against Hezbollah, its killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, or both. The case for responding, to restore deterrence, is strong, although it could be argued that by so weakening Hezbollah Israel has already sent Iran a powerful message as it can no longer rely on the threat of Hezbollah attacks on Israel to restrain Israeli action against it.
I continue to think what makes the most sense for Israel is to attack a number of factories in Iran where missiles and drones are built and stored. This would be germane to actions taken by Iran and the threat it poses but likely would not be perceived as a major escalation that would inevitably invite further Iranian strikes involving—among other instruments—its remaining inventory of some three thousand ballistic missiles.
I would hold off on attacks targeting oil installations as Iran could easily respond by attacking Gulf countries’ facilities, widening the war and weakening the already strained global economy. I also think it premature to attack Iranian nuclear-related sites. Such attacks would set back but not eliminate the Iranian program. Iran is still as much as a year away from being able to produce nuclear weapons and seems not to have made the decision to cross that rubicon yet. A preventive attack by Israel would almost certainly lead to such a decision and spur Iran to produce nuclear weapons in locations far more difficult to destroy.
Stormy Weather
Here at Home the big news is Hurricane Milton, coming hot on the heels of Hurricane Helene. As scientists have long warned, storm intensity is increasing as the result of warmer water and atmospheric temperatures. You would be hard pressed to know there is a connection between these hurricanes and climate change, though. Many in the media appear afraid to mention it lest they be attacked by the climate change deniers dominating the Republican Party, many of whom have also exploited the crisis to perpetuate conspiracy theories about FEMA that have endangered those most affected by these storms.
The other storm is more strictly political. The latest are revelations, courtesy of Bob Woodward and confirmed by the Kremlin, that Trump as president shipped Covid test machines to Vladimir Putin at the height of the pandemic when many U.S. hospitals were facing debilitating shortages of such equipment. And that former president Trump had quite a few previously undisclosed phone conversations with Putin after leaving office. The phone calls are not per se inappropriate but raise a host of questions because of Trump’s worrisome and never explained relationship with Putin. Making it all worse is that Trump did not coordinate these calls (be it in advance or afterwards) with the White House or State Department as is standard practice among former senior officials.
‘Tis the Season
For the Nobel Peace Prize, that is. The Committee determining the prize has not distinguished itself in some time. Burned by awards judged to be unwarranted or premature (or both) to such persons as Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, and Barack Obama (before he had done anything to deserve it), the committee tends to play it safe or play politics.
This year’s choice of Nihon Hidankyo, an organization representing Japanese survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, is a case in point. Don’t get me wrong. This is a worthy organization with all the standing in the world to reinforce the taboo against nuclear use. But we must also admit that its impact is negligible; indeed, existing nuclear inventories are either being modernized, or increased, or both, and Vladimir Putin has paid no price for raising the possibility of nuclear use.
My choice for the 2024 peace prize would also have involved Japan, but in a very different way. I believe the prize ought to have gone to former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in recognition of all they have done to deal with the legacy of Japanese aggression and heal the historical divide between their countries. Theirs was an all-to-rare display of diplomatic vision and political courage, one that had beneficial, tangible impact.
As always, I include some links. I also want to provide the full text of the piece I did for Project Syndicate on the lessons and legacy of October 7 as I gather from some readers that they could not access the article last week.
Richard Haass in the news
Thursday, October 10: Bloomberg Surveillance (audio)
Thursday, October 10: Bloomberg Surveillance (video)
Thursday, October 10: Bloomberg Surveillance Single Best Idea
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens
The Lessons and Legacy of October 7
It is possible to win a war on the battlefield and still lose it. Israel has done precisely that in Gaza, by choosing to fight a conventional war against an unconventional foe without a plan for what comes next.
NEW YORK – One year ago, Hamas killed some 1,200 people – overwhelmingly civilians – in Israel and took more than 250 hostage. Since then, Israel has reduced much of Gaza to rubble; more than 40,000 of its inhabitants reportedly have been killed, a figure that includes 10,000-20,000 Hamas militants. Over 700 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives fighting Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxies.
The conflict is obviously far from over. Rarely a day goes by without new military strikes and casualties. That said, the most intense phase of the Gaza conflict seems to be winding down: with Hamas degraded militarily, Israeli leaders have shifted their focus north, attacking Hezbollah’s leaders and assets in Lebanon. It is not too soon, therefore, to attempt to summarize and assess the lessons and legacy of October 7.
For starters, assumptions can be dangerous. The attack surprised Israel for the second time in its history (the first being the launch of the 1973 October War). Although there were warnings about what Hamas was planning, senior military and political officials did not take them seriously. They continued to station most of the Israel Defense Forces’ battalions in the West Bank, leaving the border with Gaza nearly unprotected. And as was the case 50 years earlier, complacency proved to be costly.
The October 7 attack also demonstrated that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. For a decade, the Israeli government under the direction of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu provided substantial economic support to Hamas with the explicit hope that doing so would better position Hamas to compete with the Palestinian Authority (PA). Netanyahu’s goal was to divide Palestinians, weaken the influence of the more internationally palatable voice of Palestinian nationalism, and thereby render a two-state solution impossible.
Israel succeeded all too well in contributing to the weakening of the PA. Where it failed was in thinking it could buy off Hamas.
Wars are as much political as military undertakings. It is possible to win a war on the battlefield and still lose it. Israel has done precisely that in Gaza, by choosing to fight a conventional war against an unconventional foe without a plan for what comes next. Military success must be translated into enduring security and governance arrangements. But Israeli officials have refused to advance a proposal for either, fearing that a viable plan would require a role for the PA, along with an Arab stabilization force, which would build momentum toward a Palestinian state and catalyze Israeli infighting that could topple Netanyahu’s government.
Making matters worse, Israel is defining success – the eradication of Hamas – in terms that cannot be met. Israel thus loses by not winning, whereas Hamas wins by not losing. Hamas, which is as much an idea and a network as an organization, will inevitably survive in some form and retain the ability to reconstitute itself, especially in the emerging context of an open-ended Israeli occupation with no competition from more moderate Palestinians.
What has happened since October 7 also offers some lessons for would-be mediators. Persuasion alone cannot be relied upon to change the behavior of others, be they friends or enemies. Diplomacy must be backed by incentives and sanctions, and sometimes carrots and sticks ought to be abandoned.
Moreover, diplomacy cannot succeed if the mediator wants success more than the protagonists, who must conclude for themselves that compromise and agreement are preferable to continued conflict. When the protagonists conclude otherwise, no amount of mediation, no matter how well-intentioned, can succeed.
The legacy – or more accurately legacies – of October 7 provide little ground for optimism. A two-state solution is more distant than ever. Such an approach was already a long shot before October 7, but the last year has reinforced Israelis’ doubt about the desirability and possibility of living safely alongside an independent Palestinian state. At the same time, Israel’s response to October 7 has strengthened anti-Israel views among Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel proper, and strengthened the appeal of Hamas, which, like its backers in Iran, has no interest in peaceful coexistence with Israel.
The net result is that the future is likely to resemble a “one-state non-solution”: Israeli control of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, an expanding settler population, and frequent clashes between Israeli security forces and Hamas in Gaza and with Hamas-like militias in the West Bank.
Israel has lost a great deal, not just in lives and economic output, but in reputation and standing in the United States and the world. A younger generation sees Israel more as Goliath than David, more oppressor than oppressed. Anti-Semitism has spiked. And with prospects for a two-state solution all but dead, Israel could well face a binary choice between being a Jewish state and a democratic one. The weakening of Hezbollah and the Houthis, however welcome, does not alter these realities.
Israel has also paid a price in the region. Iran has achieved what may have been one of its original goals for the attack: making it more difficult for Saudi Arabia, a powerful force in the Arab and Islamic worlds, to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel. Although condemnation of Israel’s actions since October 7 will not prevent intelligence and military cooperation with select Arab governments facing the mutual threat of Iran, the kingdom’s ruler has walked back his openness to normalizing relations in the absence of an independent Palestinian state.
The US has also paid a high price since October 7. It has lost standing in the Arab world for its inability to influence Israeli policy, and has alienated some in Israel with its criticism and independent moves. Moreover, the US finds itself once again deeply involved in the Middle East when its strategic priorities are to deter Chinese aggression in the Asia-Pacific and counter Russian aggression in Europe. All this no doubt brings satisfaction to the anti-Western axis comprising China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
None of this was inevitable. Successive Israeli governments chose to weaken the PA and underestimated the threat posed by Hamas, which took advantage by staging its brutal attack. Israel then responded militarily and not at all politically. And the US expended most of its diplomatic capital advocating in vain for a ceasefire that neither protagonist wanted. The human, economic, and diplomatic price has been enormous, and what already was the world’s most troubled region has been left even worse off.