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From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen ‹
> 
Subject: March 8 update 
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:16:41 +0000 
8 March, 2014 
Article 1. 
The Washington Post 
Will America heed the wake-up call of Ukraine? 
Condoleezza Rice 
Article 2. 
The Washington Post 
Assad taking advantage of U.S.-Russia split over Ukraine 
Liz Sly 
Article 3. 
NYT 
Why Russia Can't Afford another Cold War 
James B. Stewart 
Article 4. 
The National Interest 
Iran Deal: Keeping Israel On Board 
Shai Feldman, Oren Setter 
Article 5. 
Foreign Policy in Focus 
A New World Order? 
Tom Engelhardt 
Article 6. 
Foreign Affairs 
Yarmouk and the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Negotiations 
Hussein Ibish 
Article 7. 
The New York Review of Books 
Imaginary Jews 
Michael Walzer 
Articic 
The Washington Post 
Will America heed the wake-up__ 
Ukraine? 
Condoleezza Rice 
March 8 -- "Meet Viktor Yanukovych, who is running for the presidency of 
Ukraine." Vladimir Putin and I were standing in his office at the 
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presidential dacha in late 2004 when Yanukovych suddenly appeared from 
a back room. Putin wanted me to get the point. He's my man, Ukraine is 
ours — and don't forget it. 
The "Ukrainian problem" has been brewing for some time between the 
West and Russia. Since Ukraine's Orange Revolution, the United States 
and Europe have tried to convince Russia that the vast territory should not 
be a pawn in a great-power conflict but rather an independent nation that 
could chart its own course. Putin has never seen it that way. For him, 
Kiev's movement toward the West is an affront to Russia in a zero-sum 
game for the loyalty of former territories of the empire. The invasion and 
possible annexation of Crimea on trumped-up concerns for its Russian-
speaking population is his answer to us. 
The immediate concern must be to show Russia that further moves will not 
be tolerated and that Ukraine's territorial integrity is sacrosanct. 
Diplomatic isolation, asset freezes and travel bans against oligarchs are 
appropriate. The announcement of air defense exercises with the Baltic 
states and the movement of a U.S. destroyer to the Black Sea bolster our 
allies, as does economic help for Ukraine's embattled leaders, who must 
put aside their internal divisions and govern their country. 
The longer-term task is to answer Putin's statement about Europe's post-
Cold War future. He is saying that Ukraine will never be free to make its 
own choices — a message meant to reverberate in Eastern Europe and the 
Baltic states — and that Russia has special interests it will pursue at all 
costs. For Putin, the Cold War ended "tragically." He will turn the clock 
back as far as intimidation through military power, economic leverage and 
Western inaction will allow. 
After Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the United States sent ships into the 
Black Sea, airlifted Georgian military forces from Iraq back to their home 
bases and sent humanitarian aid. Russia was denied its ultimate goal of 
overthrowing the democratically elected government, an admission made 
to me by the Russian foreign minister. The United States and Europe could 
agree on only a few actions to isolate Russia politically. 
But even those modest steps did not hold. Despite Russia's continued 
occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the diplomatic isolation waned 
and then the Obama administration's "reset" led to an abrupt revision of 
plans to deploy missile defense components in the Czech Republic and 
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Poland. Talk of Ukraine and Georgia's future in NATO ceased. Moscow 
cheered. 
This time has to be different. Putin is playing for the long haul, cleverly 
exploiting every opening he sees. So must we, practicing strategic patience 
if he is to be stopped. Moscow is not immune from pressure. This is not 
1968, and Russia is not the Soviet Union. The Russians need foreign 
investment; oligarchs like traveling to Paris and London, and there are 
plenty of ill-gotten gains stored in bank accounts abroad; the syndicate that 
runs Russia cannot tolerate lower oil prices; neither can the Kremlin's 
budget, which sustains subsidies toward constituencies that support Putin. 
Soon, North America's bounty of oil and gas will swamp Moscow's 
capacity. Authorizing the Keystone XL pipeline and championing natural 
gas exports would signal that we intend to do precisely that. And Europe 
should finally diversify its energy supply and develop pipelines that do not 
run through Russia. 
Many of Russia's most productive people, particularly its well-educated 
youth, are alienated from the Kremlin. They know that their country should 
not be only an extractive industries giant. They want political and 
economic freedoms and the ability to innovate and create in today's 
knowledge-based economy. We should reach out to Russian youth, 
especially students and young professionals, many of whom are studying in 
U.S. universities and working in Western firms. Democratic forces in 
Russia need to hear American support for their ambitions. They, not Putin, 
are Russia's future. 
Most important, the United States must restore its standing in the 
international community, which has been eroded by too many extended 
hands of friendship to our adversaries, sometimes at the expense of our 
friends. Continued inaction in Syria, which has strengthened Moscow's 
hand in the Middle East, and signs that we are desperate for a nuclear 
agreement with Iran cannot be separated from Putin's recent actions. 
Radically declining U.S. defense budgets signal that we no longer have the 
will or intention to sustain global order, as does talk of withdrawal from 
Afghanistan whether the security situation warrants it or not. We must not 
fail, as we did in Iraq, to leave behind a residual presence. Anything less 
than the military's requirement for 10,000 troops will say that we are not 
serious about helping to stabilize that country. 
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The notion that the United States could step back, lower its voice about 
democracy and human rights and let others lead assumed that the space we 
abandoned would be filled by democratic allies, friendly states and the 
amorphous "norms of the international community." Instead, we have seen 
the vacuum being filled by extremists such as al-Qaeda reborn in Iraq and 
Syria; by dictators like Bashar al-Assad, who, with the support of Iran and 
Russia, murders his own people; by nationalist rhetoric and actions by 
Beijing that have prompted nationalist responses from our ally Japan; and 
by the likes of Vladimir Putin, who understands that hard power still 
matters. 
These global developments have not happened in response to a muscular 
U.S. foreign policy: Countries are not trying to "balance" American power. 
They have come due to signals that we are exhausted and disinterested. 
The events in Ukraine should be a wake-up call to those on both sides of 
the aisle who believe that the United States should eschew the 
responsibilities of leadership. If it is not heeded, dictators and extremists 
across the globe will be emboldened. And we will pay a price as our 
interests and our values are trampled in their wake. 
Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state from 2005 to 2009. 
The Washington Post 
Assad taking advantage of U.S.-Russia split 
over Ukraine 
Liz Sly 
March 7 -- Beirut — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is taking advantage 
of the rift between Russia and the United States over Ukraine to press 
ahead with plans to crush the rebellion against his rule and secure his 
reelection for another seven-year term, unencumbered by pressure to 
compromise with his opponents. 
The collapse last month of peace talks in Geneva, jointly sponsored by 
Russia and the United States, had already eroded the slim prospects that a 
negotiated settlement to the Syrian war might be possible. With backers of 
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the peace process now at odds over the outcome of the popular uprising in 
Ukraine, Assad feels newly confident that his efforts to restore his 
government's authority won't be met soon with any significant challenge 
from the international community, according to analysts and people 
familiar with the thinking of the regime. 
Russian President Vladimir Putin's defiant response to the toppling of 
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has further reinforced Assad's 
conviction that he can continue to count on Russia's unwavering support 
against the armed rebellion challenging his rule, said Salem Zahran, a 
Damascus-based journalist and analyst with close ties to the Syrian regime. 
"The regime believes the Russians now have a new and stronger reason to 
keep Assad in power and support him, especially after the experience of 
Libya, and now Ukraine," he said. "In addition, the regime believes that 
any conflict in the world which distracts the attention of the Americans is a 
factor which eases pressure on Syria." 
On Friday, tensions between Moscow and Washington showed no sign of 
abating, with Putin angrily rejecting the Obama administration's attempt to 
bring about a withdrawal of Russian troops from Crimea by imposing
sanctions."Russia cannot ignore calls for help, and it acts accordingly, in 
full compliance with international law," Putin said in a statement. 
The Syrian war is only one of a number of contentious issues in the Middle 
East that expose the vulnerability of U.S. interests to a revival of Cold War-
era tensions with Russia such as those that have surfaced in Ukraine. The 
nuclear accord with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, both of 
which rank higher on the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda 
than Syria, are also dependent to an extent on Moscow's cooperation. 
In a less-noted development in recent months, newly ambivalent U.S. allies 
such as Egypt and Iraq have been quietly concluding significant arms deals 
with Moscow, largely spurred by concerns that the Obama administration's 
reluctance to become embroiled in the messy outcomes of the Arab Spring 
means that Washington can no longer be counted on as a reliable source of 
support. 
Most Arab countries have remained silent on the Ukraine crisis, and some 
could well move further into Russia's orbit should Washington be seen to 
be wavering, said Theodore Karasik of the Dubai-based Institute for Near 
East and Gulf Military Analysis. 
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"They see Russia as a major current and future partner in the region, 
because in their perspective, the U.S. is retreating," he said. 
It is in Syria, however, where strains between the United States and Russia 
are likely to have the most immediate impact. For most of the three years 
since the Syrian uprising began, the Obama administration's Syria policy 
has been predicated on the assumption that Russia would be a willing 
partner in efforts to persuade Assad to relinquish power. 
That policy, perhaps unlikely ever to have worked, has now been exposed 
as unrealistic, said Amr Al Azm, a professor of history at Shawnee State 
University in Ohio. Putin's defense of Yanukovych means "three years of 
Syrian diplomacy has gone down the toilet," he said. "It's a huge failure for 
the White House." 
Even if the Russians had ever been inclined to collaborate with the United 
States on a solution for Syria, "they'll be unlikely to do so now, because 
they won't want to hand Obama a victory," said Andrew Tabler of the 
Washington Institute for Near East Affairs. 
Two other areas of U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria will now also be put to 
the test: last summer's a reement to destroy Syria's arsenal of chemical 
weapons, and the recent. resolution calling on Syria to facilitate the 
delivery of humanitarian aid and halt attacks such as the deadly barrel 
bombings that have claimed hundreds of lives in the past two months. 
There are no indications that Assad is in a hurry to comply with either. 
Syria has already missed two deadlines for the removal of chemical 
weapons, and officials at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical 
Weapons indicated this week that it is likely to miss a third, on March 15. 
The barrel bombings have continued unabated, and there has been no 
discernible progress toward relieving the crippling sieges of rebel-held 
towns, which have put thousands of people at risk of starvation. 
Instead, Assad is stepping up preparations for a presidential election due to 
be held in June under the terms of the current constitution. Though no date 
has been set and Assad has not officially announced his candidacy, Syrian 
government officials have repeatedly stressed that the election will go 
ahead, that Assad will run and that he expects to win. 
A suggestion made before the Geneva talks opened in January that Syria 
would permit international monitoring was dismissed as unnecessary this 
week by Assad adviser Buthaina Shaaban in an interview with a Lebanese 
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television network. "We have credibility and we don't accept any 
interference," she said, stressing that the election would go ahead on 
schedule. 
Intense discussions are underway in Damascus, people familiar with 
government thinking say, over ways to create legitimacy for the election at 
a time when many parts of the country have fallen under rebel control, 
large swaths have been depopulated by violence and more than 2 million 
citizens are refugees. The government is hoping to persuade at least one 
candidate to run against Assad, though none has yet emerged. 
In the absence of serious political reforms such as those it was hoped the 
Geneva talks would produce, the chances are good that Assad will repeat 
the 97 percent victory he won the last time elections were held, in 2007, 
said Tabler, who witnessed that poll while living in Damascus. "It was 
farcical," he said. 
The preparations coincide with slow but steady gains on the battlefield by 
forces loyal to Assad, including advances in the northern province of 
Aleppo, which was once regarded as having slipped far beyond the reach 
of the government. The advances have been aided by significant support 
from Russia, which has sustained a steady supply of arms to the Syrian 
military — routed mainly through the Ukrainian port of Odessa. 
A significant shift in U.S. policy in favor of more robust support to the 
rebels could yet tilt the balance of power on the ground, analysts say. But it 
is more likely that Washington's attention will be further diverted from 
Syria while Russia sustains its steadfast support for Assad, said Salman 
Shaikh of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. 
"Putin sees the world as one big chessboard on which he can play two or 
three moves at the same time. I am not sure the West can do that," he said. 
"I don't see the Russians backing off their support for Assad, and I think 
Assad will continue to do what he has always wanted to do, which is to 
win militarily." 
Suzan Haidamous contributed to this report. 
Ankle 3. 
NYT 
Why Russia Can't Afford another Cold War 
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James B. Stewart 
March 7, 2014 -- Russian troops pour over a border. An autocratic Russian 
leader blames the United States and unspecified "radicals and nationalists" 
for meddling. A puppet leader pledges fealty to Moscow. 
It's no wonder the crisis in Ukraine this week drew comparisons to 
Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 or that a chorus of pundits 
proclaimed the re-emergence of the Cold War. 
But there's at least one major difference between then and now: Moscow 
has a stock market. 
Under the autocratic grip of President Vladimir Putin, Russia may be a 
democracy in name only, but the gyrations of the Moscow stock exchange 
provided a minute-by-minute referendum on his military and diplomatic 
actions. On Monday, the Russian stock market index, the RTSI, fell more 
than 12 percent, in what a Russian official called panic selling. The plunge 
wiped out nearly $60 billion in asset value — more than the exorbitant cost 
of the Sochi Olympics. The ruble plunged on currency markets, forcing the 
Russian central bank to raise interest rates by one and a half percentage 
points to defend the currency. 
Mr. Putin "seems to have stopped a potential invasion of Eastern Ukraine 
because the RTS index slumped by 12 percent" on Monday, said Anders 
Aslund, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International 
Economics in Washington. 
On Tuesday, as soon as Mr. Putin said he saw no need for further Russian 
military intervention, the Russian market rebounded by 6 percent. With 
tensions on the rise once more on Friday, the Russian market may again 
gyrate when it opens on Monday. 
Mr. Putin seems to be "following the old Soviet playbook," in Ukraine, 
Strobe Talbott, an expert on the history of the Cold War, told me this week. 
"But back then, there was no concern about what would happen to the 
Soviet stock market. If, in fact, Putin is cooling his jets and might even 
blink, it's probably because of rising concern about the price Russia would 
have to pay." Mr. Talbott is the president of the Brookings Institution, a 
former ambassador at large who oversaw the breakup of the former Soviet 
Union during the Clinton administration and the author of "The Russia 
Hand." 
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Russia is far more exposed to market fluctuations than many countries, 
since it owns a majority stake in a number of the country's largest 
companies. Gazprom, the energy concern that is Russia's largest company 
by market capitalization, is majority-owned by the Russian Federation. At 
the same time, Gazprom's shares are listed on the London stock exchange 
and are traded over the counter as American depositary receipts in the 
United States as well as on the Berlin and Paris exchanges. Over half of its 
shareholders are American, according to J. P. Morgan Securities. And the 
custodian bank for its depository receipts is the Bank of New York Mellon. 
Many Russian companies and banks are fully integrated into the global 
financial system. This week, Glencore Xstrata, the mining giant based in 
Switzerland, was in the middle of a roughly $1 billion debt-to-equity 
refinancing deal with the Russian oil company Russneft. Glencore said it 
expected to complete the deal despite the crisis. Glencore's revenue last 
year was substantially larger than the entire gross domestic product of 
Ukraine, which was $176 billion, according to the World Bank. 
The old Soviet Union, in stark contrast, was all but impervious to foreign 
economic or business pressure, thanks in part to an ideological 
commitment to self-sufficiency. As recently as 1985, foreign trade 
amounted to just 4 percent of the country's gross domestic product, and 
nearly all that was with the communist satellite countries of Eastern 
Europe. But the Soviet Union's economic insularity and resulting 
economic stagnation was a major cause of the Soviet Union's collapse. 
According to Mr. Talbott, the Soviet Union's president at the time, Mikhail 
Gorbachev, was heavily influenced by Soviet economists and other 
academics who warned that by the turn of the century in 2000, the Soviet 
economy would be smaller than South Korea's if it did not introduce major 
economic reforms and participate in the global economy. 
To attract investment capital, Mr. Gorbachev created the Moscow stock 
exchange in 1990 and issued an order permitting Soviet citizens to own 
and trade stocks, bonds and other securities for the first time since the 1917 
Bolshevik revolution. (Before then, Russia had a flourishing stock 
exchange in St. Petersburg, established by order of Peter the Great. It was 
housed in an elegant neoclassical building directly across the waterfront 
from the Winter Palace. As a symbol of wealth and capitalism, it was one 
of the earliest casualties of the revolution.) 
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Even before this week's gyrations, the Russian stock market index had 
dropped near 8 percent last year, and it and the Russian economy have 
been suffering from low commodity prices and investor concerns about the 
Federal Reserve's tapering of bond purchases — factors of little 
significance during the Cold War. 
By contrast, today "Russia is too weak and vulnerable economically to go 
to war," Mr. Aslund said. "The Kremlin's fundamental mistake has been to 
ignore its economic weakness and dependence on Europe. Almost half of 
Russia's exports go to Europe, and three-quarters of its total exports consist 
of oil and gas. The energy boom is over, and Europe can turn the tables on 
Russia after its prior gas supply cuts in 2006 and 2009. Europe can replace 
this gas with liquefied natural  as, gas from Norway and shale gas. If the 
European Union sanctioned Russia's gas supply to Europe, Russia would 
lose $100 billion or one-fifth of its export revenues, and the Russian 
economy would be in rampant crisis." 
Mr. Putin may be "living in another world," as the German chancellor, 
Angela Merkel, put it this week, but surely even he recognizes that the 
world has changed drastically since 1956 or 1968. He has no doubt been 
getting an earful from his wealthy oligarch friends, many of whom run 
Russia's largest companies and have stashed their personal assets in places 
like London and New York. The oligarchs "would not dare to challenge 
him," a prominent Russian economist told me. (He asked not to be named 
for fear of retribution.) "But they would say something like they would 
have to lay off workers and reduce tax payments." 
During the Cold War, there were few, if any, Russian billionaires. Today, 
there are 111, according to Forbes magazine's latest rankings, and Russia 
ranks third in the number of billionaires, behind the United States and 
China. The economist noted that the billionaire Russian elite — who are 
pretty much synonymous with Mr. Putin's friends and allies — are the ones 
who would be severely affected by visa bans, which were imposed by 
President Obama on Thursday. Other penalties might include asset freezes. 
Many Russian oligarchs have real estate and other assets in Europe and the 
United States, like the Central Park West penthouse a trust set up by the 
Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev bought for $88 million. "This is what 
may have already forced Putin to retreat," the Russian economist said. 
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And while the Cold War was a global contest between Marxism and 
capitalism, there is today "no real ideological component to the conflict 
except that Putin has become the personification of rejecting the West as a 
model," Mr. Talbott said. "He wants to promote a Eurasian community 
dominated by Moscow, but that's not an ideology. Russia's economy may 
be an example of crony capitalism, but it is capitalism. There's not even a 
shadow of Marxism-Leninism now." What brought down the old Soviet 
Union and ended the Cold War "was the economic imperative to make 
Russia into a modern, efficient, normal state, a player in the international 
economy, not because of military power but because of a strong economy," 
Mr. Talbott continued. But "to have a modern economy, you need the rule 
of law and a free press." Mr. Putin, he said, "isn't advancing Russia's 
progress." The Russian economist agreed. "The pre-2008 social compact 
was that Putin would rule Russia while Russians would see growing 
incomes," he said. "Now, the growth has stalled, and he needs ideology, 
coupled with propaganda and repressions. Apparently, the Soviet 
restoration is the only ideology he can come up with." Russia does have 
uniquely strong ties to Ukraine. "Of all the former provinces of the old 
Soviet Union, it's the most painful to have lost and the one many Russians 
would most want to have back," Mr. Talbott said. "The ties between Kiev 
and Moscow go back over 300 years. Ukraine is the heart of Russian 
culture." With Russian troops entrenched in the Crimean peninsula and 
some Russian Ukrainians clamoring for annexation, there may be little the 
United States or its allies can do to restore the status quo. "Containment, in 
a muted and modified way, will once again be the strategy of the West and 
the mission of NATO," Mr. Talbott predicted. But not another Cold War, 
which is surely a good thing. "A propaganda war is completely feasible," 
the Russian economist said. "The recent events were completely irrational, 
angering the West for no reason. This is what is most scary, especially for 
businesses. Instead of reforming the stagnating economy, Putin scared 
everybody for no reason and with no gain in sight. So it is hard to predict 
his next actions. But I think a real Cold War is unlikely." 
Anicic 4. 
The National Interest 
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Iran Deal: Keeping Israel On Board 
Shai Feldman, Oren Setter 
March 8, 2014 -- The recent launching by the P5+1 of negotiations of a 
comprehensive deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program poses serious 
dilemmas for both the U.S. and Israel given the enormous stakes involved. 
For the U.S., the formal goal is to be [4]verifiably assured that Iran's 
nuclear program is  peaceful. In reality, America's goal is to prevent Iran's 
nuclear program from reaching a point where the U.S. would have no 
choice but to decide between "bombing and the bomb"—that is, between 
attacking Iran's nuclear installations or "living with an Iranian bomb." In 
turn, this decision point can only be avoided by restoring a significant 
"breakout time" for Iran's nuclear effort. Yet, restoring such "breakout 
time" does not exclude the possibility that Iran would be permitted to have 
a `small, discrete, limited' uranium-enrichment program. 
For Israel, the stakes in these negotiations are even higher—it sees itself as 
the primary target of a future Iranian nuclear force and regards such a 
capability as an existential threat. Israel stresses that an agreement with 
Tehran must therefore "dismantle the Iranian ability to either produce or 
launch a nuclear weapon." Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu 
argued that this can only be achieved if Iran would have "zero enrichment, 
zero centrifuge, zero plutonium, an 
 an end to ICBM development."
These very high but different stakes and divergent goals present 
Washington and Jerusalem with a first-order alliance-management 
problem. The Obama administration is fully cognizant of Israel's concerns 
and greater stakes in the nuclear talks. It is also aware that influential 
circles in Washington may have even greater sensitivity and sympathy for 
Israel's worries. Especially important is the U.S. Congress, whose approval 
of any agreement reached with Iran will be crucial. This is because almost 
all that Iran seeks to achieve in any agreement reached—namely, 
significant sanctions relief—cannot be implemented without the 
Congress's consent. For the Obama administration, therefore, the Israeli-
alliance-management challenge has an important U.S. domestic dimension 
as well. 
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Given that for Israel the stakes involved in a comprehensive deal with Iran 
would be far greater than those associated with the interim agreement 
negotiated last fall, the Israeli government can be expected to mobilize its 
friends and wage a far more effective campaign against a comprehensive 
deal that it would judge as endangering the security and survival of the 
Jewish state. So what in this context is America's Israeli dilemma? It is: 
how to alleviate Israel's concerns about the recently launched talks by 
making it a "silent" partner to the talks without providing it a veto power 
over the outcome of these negotiations. 
Clearly, the U.S. worries that if Israel would be fully briefed on every 
development in the talks, it would have multiple opportunities to derail 
them should it conclude that the result would allow Iran's nuclear program 
to survive. Conversely, if Israel was excluded from important negotiation 
venues-as was apparently the case when Deputy Secretary of State 
William Burns conducted secret nuclear talks with Iran in Oman last fall—
it would be very difficult to win acceptance of the talks' results from Israel 
and its friends in the U.S. 
No less challenging is the dilemma that the negotiations for a 
comprehensive deal with Iran pose for Israel. On the one hand, Israel sees 
itself as the guardian of the "ideal deal" in which Iran truly loses its 
capacity to break out to a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, given that an 
agreement that leaves Iran with "zero enrichment, zero centrifuges, zero 
plutonium,
1d_[]  an end to ICBM development" is viewed by 
Washington as unrealistic, Israel would need to convey its ideas, 
considerations and trade-offs to the negotiations process, where difficult 
decisions may have to be taken if a mutually acceptable agreement that 
restores a significant "breakout time" is to be achieved. 
What turns this into a unique dilemma is Israel's unusual role in these 
negotiations: while it is a major stakeholder in the outcome of the process, 
it is not a formal member of the negotiations team. Thus Israel's influence 
on the actual agreement can only be indirect, requiring it to consider 
carefully how every move it might make will affect the negotiation table. 
Under such circumstances, what are Israel's options? The first is for Israel 
to hold on to its current line, insisting on the "ideal deal" as the only 
solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. The merits of this approach are two-
fold: first, and obvious, is that it reflects accurately what Israel sees as the 
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`correct' solution to Iran's nuclear program. Second, and more important, it 
would send a clear and unambiguous signal to the P5+1 leaders and 
negotiators that this is the yardstick against which any comprehensive 
agreement with Iran will be measured. In this scenario, Israel would hope 
that its position would serve as a 'lighthouse' to this six-captained ship 
navigating in troubled waters. 
Yet continuing to insist on the `ideal solution' as the only acceptable 
approach also has some downsides: First, Israel may be seen not as a 
`lighthouse' but rather as an `anchor'—a deadweight preventing the ship 
from making any progress. Should the talks fail, this may result in Israel 
being blamed for the failure. Second, adopting such a stance would limit 
Israel's ability to influence the details of the negotiated agreement. Israel 
would still be able raise its concerns with the members of the P5+1 but it 
would be limited in the extent to which it would be able to bring ideas to 
the table without undercutting its formal position. 
A second option available to Israel is to adopt a more flexible stance, for 
example by accepting that the talks would result in a limited Iranian 
enrichment program. On the positive side, this option will portray Israel in 
a more reasonable light, and more importantly, it will allow it to assume a 
more substantial—though still indirect—role in affecting the "devilish" 
details of the negotiated agreement. 
Opponents of this option will argue that it will result in a slippery slope, 
with Israel's new red line quickly becoming the new baseline for the talks. 
Given that all negotiations are associated with considerable pressures to 
reach a deal—and, therefore, with pressures to compromise so that a deal 
can be reached—the new baseline may well result in an outcome worse 
than that anticipated in the event that Israel would stubbornly insist on 
nothing short of the "ideal deal." 
Given these conflicting considerations, can the U.S. and Israel maintain 
their informal alliance while maximizing the odds that the talks recently 
launched would produce an optimal comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran? 
The key here seems to be the ability and willingness of Washington and 
Jerusalem to prenegotiate a "code of conduct" possibly consisting of four 
elements: First, a U.S.-Israel agreed timeframe for testing Iran's 
willingness to reach a deal limiting its nuclear program. Second, an 
understanding that during the agreed timeframe for the talks, Israel, while 
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adhering to its public stance favoring the "ideal deal" would refrain from 
undermining the negotiations by waging a public campaign against the 
talks. Third, that during the same timeframe the Israeli national-security 
community will be fully briefed regarding the details of the talks, and more 
importantly, will be provided multiple opportunities to share its possible 
concerns and to offer its ideas about the ways in which difficult issues in 
the talks can be best addressed. Fourth, and in parallel, the U.S. and Israel 
will create one or more Track-II channels for conversations among both 
sides' non-official experts and former government officials. In these totally 
deniable frameworks, the two sides will be able to explore ideas and 
possible compromises that may be deemed too sensitive even for secret-
yet-official talks. 
The stakes involved for the U.S. and Israel in the recently launched efforts 
to reach a comprehensive deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program are 
enormous. Yet their stakes and priorities in these talks are not identical, 
presenting Washington and Jerusalem with a serious alliance management 
problem. The four-element "code of conduct' proposed here would allow 
the U.S. and Israel to maintain their close ties while the P-5+1 led by the 
U.S. productively negotiate with Iran. 
Shai Feldman is Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at 
Brandeis University. Oren Setter is a Research Fellow at the Harvard 
Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 
Anicic 5. 
Foreign Policy in Focus 
A New World Order? 
Tom Engelhardt 
March 7, 2014 -- There is, it seems, something new under the sun. 
Geopolitically speaking, when it comes to war and the imperial principle, 
we may be in uncharted territory. Take a look around and you'll see a 
world at the boiling point. From Ukraine to Syria, South Sudan to 
Thailand, Libya to Bosnia, Turkey to Venezuela, citizen protest (left and 
right) is sparking not just disorganization, but what looks like, to coin a 
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word, de-organization at a global level. Increasingly, the unitary status of 
states, large and small, old and new, is being called into question. Civil 
war, violence, and internecine struggles of various sorts are visibly on the 
rise. In many cases, outside countries are involved and yet in each instance 
state power seems to be draining away to no other state's gain. So here's 
one question: Where exactly is power located on this planet of ours right 
now? There is, of course, a single waning superpower that has in this new 
century sent its military into action globally, aggressively, repeatedly —
and disastrously. And yet these actions have failed to reinforce the imperial 
system of organizing and garrisoning the planet that it put in place at the 
end of World War II; nor has it proven capable of organizing a new global 
system for a new century. In fact, everywhere it's touched militarily, local 
and regional chaos have followed. In the meantime, its own political 
system has grown gargantuan and unwieldy; its electoral process has been 
overwhelmed by vast flows of money from the wealthy 1 percent; and its 
governing system is visibly troubled, if not dysfunctional. Its rich are ever 
richer, its poor ever poorer, and its middle class in decline. Its military, the 
largest by many multiples on the planet, is nonetheless beginning to cat 
back. Around the world, allies, client states, and enemies are paying ever 
less attention to its wishes and desires, often without serious penalty. It has 
the classic look of a great power in decline and in another moment it might 
be easy enough to predict that, though far wealthier than its Cold War 
superpower adversary, it has simply been heading for the graveyard more 
slowly but no less surely. Such a prediction would, however, be unwise. 
Never since the modern era began has a waning power so lacked serious 
competition or been essentially without enemies. Whether in decline or 
not, the United States — these days being hailed as "the new Saudi Arabia" 
in terms of its frackable energy wealth — is visibly in no danger of losing 
its status as the planet's only imperial power. 
What, then, of power itself? Are we still in some strange way — to bring 
back the long forgotten Bush-era phrase — in a unipolar moment? Or is 
power, as it was briefly fashionable to say, increasingly multipolar? Or is it 
helter-skelter-polar? Or on a planet whose temperatures are rising, droughts 
growing more severe, and future food prices threatening to soar (meaning 
yet more protest, violence, and disruption), are there even "poles" any 
more? 
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Here, in any case, is a reality of the initial years of the twenty-first century: 
for the first time in at least a half a millennium, the imperial principle 
seems to be ebbing, and yet the only imperial power, increasingly 
incapable of organizing the world, isn't going down. 
If you survey our planet, the situation is remarkably unsettled and 
confusing. But at least two things stand out, and whatever you make of 
them, they could be the real news of the first decades of this century. Both 
are right before our eyes, yet largely unseen. First, the imperial principle 
and the great power competition to which it has been wedded are on the 
wane. Second and no less startling, war (global, intrastate, anti-insurgent), 
which convulsed the twentieth century, seems to be waning as well. What 
in the world does it all mean? 
A Scarcity of Great Powers 
Let's start with the imperial part of the equation. From the moment the 
Europeans dispatched their cannon-bearing wooden ships on a violent 
exploration and conquest of the globe, there has never been a moment 
when one or more empires weren't rising as others waned, or when at least 
two and sometimes several "great powers" weren't competing for ways to 
divide the planetary spoils and organize, encroach upon, or take over 
spheres of influence. In the wake of World War II, with the British Empire 
essentially penniless and the German, Japanese, and Italian versions of 
empire crushed, only two great powers were left. They more or less divided 
the planet unequally between them. Of the two, the United States was 
significantly wealthier and more powerful. In 1991, after a nearly half-
century-long Cold War in which those superpowers at least once came to 
the edge of a nuclear exchange, and blood was spilled in copious amounts 
on "the peripheries" in "limited war," the last of the conflicts of that era —
in Afghanistan — helped take down the Soviet Union. When its army 
limped home from what its leader referred to as "the bleeding wound" and 
its economy imploded, the USSR unexpectedly — and surprisingly 
peacefully — disappeared. 
Which, of course, left one. The superest of all powers of any time — or so 
many in Washington came to believe. There had never, they were 
convinced, been anything like it. One hyperpower, one planet: that was to 
be the formula. Talk of a "peace dividend" disappeared quickly enough 
and, with the U.S. military financially and technologically dominant and no 
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longer worried about a war that might quite literally end all wars, a new era 
seemed to begin. 
There had, of course, been an ongoing "arms race" between great powers 
since at least the end of the nineteenth century. Now, at a moment when it 
should logically have been over, the U.S. instead launched an arms race of 
one to ensure that no other military would ever be capable of challenging 
its forces. (Who knew then that those same forces would be laid low by 
ragtag crews of insurgents with small arms, homemade roadside bombs, 
and their own bodies as their weapons?) As the new century dawned, a 
crew led by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney ascended to power in 
Washington. They were the first administration ever largely born of a think 
tank (with the ambitious name Project for a New American Century). Long 
before 9/11 gave them their opportunity to set the American military loose 
on the planet, they were already dreaming of an all-American imperium 
that would outshine the British or Roman empires. 
Of course, who doesn't know what happened next? Though they imagined 
organizing a Pax Americana in the Middle East and then on a planetary 
scale, theirs didn't turn out to be an organizational vision at all. They got 
bogged down in Afghanistan, destabilizing neighboring Pakistan. They got 
bogged down in Iraq, having punched a hole through the heart of the 
planet's oil heartlands and set off a Sunni-Shiite regional civil war, whose 
casualty lists continue to stagger the imagination. In the process, they never 
came close to their dream of bringing Tehran to its knees, no less 
establishing even the most rudimentary version of that Pax Americana. 
They were an imperial whirlwind, but every move they made proved 
disastrous. In effect, they lent a hand to the de-imperialization of the 
planet. By the time they were done and the Obama years were upon us, 
Latin America was no longer an American "backyard"; much of the Middle 
East was a basketcase (but not an American one); Africa, into which 
Washington continues to move military forces, was beginning to 
destabilize; Europe, for the first time since the era of French President 
Charles de Gaulle, seemed ready to say "no" to American wishes (and was 
angry as hell). And yet power, seeping out of the American system, seemed 
to be coagulating nowhere. Russian President Vladimir Putin has played a 
remarkably clever hand. From his role in brokering a Syrian deal with 
Washington to the hosting of the Olympics and a winning medal count in 
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Sochi, he's given his country the look of a great power. In reality, however, 
it remains a relatively ramshackle state, a vestige of the Soviet era still, s 
in Ukraine, fighting a rearguard action against history (and the inheritors of 
the Cold War mantle, the U.S. and the European Union). 
The EU is an economic powerhouse, but in austerity-gripped disarray. 
While distinctly a great economic force, it is not in any functional sense a 
great power. China is certainly the enemy of choice both for Washington 
and the American  public. And it is visibly a rising power, which has been 
putting ever more money into building a regional military. Still, it isn't 
fighting and its economic and environmental problems are staggering 
enough, along with its food and energy needs, that any future imperial 
destiny seems elusive at best. Its leadership, while more bullish in the 
Pacific, is clearly in no mood to take on imperial tasks. (Japan is similarly 
an economic power with a chip on its shoulder, putting money into creating 
a more expansive military, but an actual imperial repeat performance seems 
beyond unlikely.) There was a time when it was believed that as a group 
the so-called BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South 
Africa (and some added Turkey) — would be the collective powerhouse of 
a future multi-polar planet. But that was before the Brazilian, South 
African, Indian, and Turkish economies stopped looking so rosy. In the 
end, the U.S. aside, great powers remain scarcer than hen's teeth. 
War: Missing in Action 
Now, let's move on to an even more striking and largely unremarked upon 
characteristic of these years. If you take one country — or possibly two —
out of the mix, war between states or between major powers and 
insurgencies has largely ceased to exist. 
Admittedly, every rule has its exceptions and from full-scale colonial-style 
wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) to small-scale conflicts mainly involving drones 
or air power (Yemen, Somalia, Libya), the United States has seemingly 
made traditional war its own in the early years of this century. Nonetheless, 
the Iraq War ended ignominiously in 2011 and the Afghan War seems to be 
limping to something close to an end in a slow-motion withdrawal this 
year. In addition, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has just announced the 
Pentagon's intention to cut its boots-on-the-ground contingent significantly 
in the years to come, a sign that future conflicts are far less likely to 
involve full-scale invasions and occupations on the Eurasian land mass. 
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Possible exception number two: Israel launched a 34-day war against 
Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and a significant three-week military 
incursion into the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 (though none of this added up 
to anything like the wars that country fought in the previous century). 
Otherwise when it comes to war — that is, to sending armies across 
national boundaries or, in nineteenth-century style, to distant lands to 
conquer and "pacify" — we're left with almost nothing. It's true that the 
last war of the previous century between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea 
straggled six months into this one. There was as well the 2008 Russian 
incursion into Georgia (a straggler from the unraveling of the Soviet 
Union). Dubbed the "five-day war," it proved a minor affair (if you didn't 
happen to be Georgian). There was also a dismal U.S.-supported Ethiopian 
invasion of Somalia in 2006 (and a Kenyan invasion of that mess of a 
country but not exactly state in 2011). As for more traditional imperial-
style wars, you can count them on one hand, possibly one finger: the 2013 
French intervention in Mali (after a disastrous U.S./NATO air-powered 
intervention in Libya destabilized it). France has also sent its troops 
elsewhere in Africa, most recently into the Central African Republic, but 
these were at best micro-versions of nineteenth-century colonial wars. 
Turkey has from time to time struck  across its border into Iraq as part of an 
internal conflict with its Kurdish population. In Asia, other than rising 
tensions and a couple of ships almost bumping on the high seas, the closest 
you can get to war in this century was a minor border clash in April 2001 
between India and Bangladesh. Now, the above might look like a sizeable 
enough list until you consider the record for the second half of the 
twentieth century in Asia alone: The Korean War (1950-1953), a month-
long border war between China and India in 1962, the French and 
American wars in Vietnam (1946-1975), the Vietnamese invasion of 
Cambodia in 1978; China's invasion of Vietnam in 1979; and Indian-
Pakistani wars in 1965, 1971, and 1999. (The Bangladeshi war of 
independence in 1971 was essentially a civil war.) And that, of course, 
leaves out the carnage of the first 50 years of a century that began with a 
foreign intervention in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904-1905 and ended with the atomic bombings of 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, judged by almost any standard from just 
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