Obama brings US in from the cold: In a landmark speech, the next president pledges to revive Kyoto Protocol and end American isolationism over climate change.

By Leonard Doyle in Washington and Michael McCarthy
Thursday, 20 November 2008, The Independent of London

Michael McCarthy: Finally, we can dare to hope.

Prospects for success in the world’s struggle to combat global warming have been transformed at a stroke after US President-elect Barack Obama made it clear that America would play its full part in renewing the Kyoto Protocol climate-change treaty.

The Bush withdrawal set back the international effort by nearly a decade – years in which it became increasingly clear that the warming of the atmosphere being caused by greenhouse gas emissions was proceeding much faster than UN scientists thought it would.

Although Mr Bush and the oilman-caucus in his government justified their Kyoto withdrawal by casting doubt on whether climate change was happening, or was caused by human actions, by last year the scientific consensus on both propositions was so great that Bush aides had to reluctantly accept both were true. But Mr Bush’s diplomatic stance hardly changed.

In contrast, the President-elect’s remarks, in a video address to a global warming summit in California attended by US governors and representatives from other nations, instantly injected a new mood of optimism among negotiators preparing for the conference at which Kyoto will be renewed and extended, due to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009.

***

“This is an incredibly welcome statement about the need not to delay, and it will send a very positive message around the world, especially to the developing countries,” said a British source involved with negotiations.

***

The Obama message was clearly timed to influence the interim negotiating meeting being held in Poznan, Poland, next month, which Mr Obama reminded his audience he could not attend, “because the United States has only one president at a time”. Mr Bush remains president until the Obama inauguration on 20 January.

But if he will not be present in Poland personally, his latest pronouncement made it clear he will be very much there in spirit. “Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global co-operation on climate change,” he said. And he went on to make the key pledge that the US would once again accept targets to reduce its own emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, which – alongside China’s – are the highest in the world.

“We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them by an additional 80 percent by 2050,” he said. Mr Obama had made his support for action clear as a presidential candidate, but he has now spelled out new yearly targets. It signals that the US is at last coming in from the cold – and that is the essential prerequisite for success at Copenhagen, which will try to map out a way for the world to hold global temperature rises to two degrees celsius above the pre-industrial level – regarded as the maximum the earth and its human communities can safely sustain.

***

The trick will be to balance the burden-sharing – in essence, to get the US and China to act together, when each has been concerned about the other trying to get a free ride. It has to be the US that takes the lead and Mr Obama recognised that explicitly. “My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process,” he said.

His words were instantly applauded as “fantastic” by California’s Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a leading force for environmental changes in the face of White House obstinacy.

***

“These were inspirational words from Obama,” said Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch. “He basically said that, even though the world economy is less than healthy, global warming remains an absolutely top priority. It means the United States is now ready to take on a leadership role in combating climate change.”

Behind Mr Obama’s words is the big idea that energy-hogging is at the root of US economic problems at home and security problems abroad. America’s gluttonous oil consumption is unsustainable, damaging the environment and making the country dependent on unstable parts of the world for its energy which, in the end, has become a threat to its national security.

Mr Obama says he is committed to pumping $150bn into transforming the economy to cut oil consumption dramatically and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He wants to start with US car manufacturers – which already need rescuing – to ensure they make hybrid or petrol-sipping cars.

—————-

At www.SustainabiliTank.info we believe that only a bi-national agreement between the US and China can remove the brakes on the multi-lateral negotiations.

So, the Way to a Copenhagen I resolution goes via a Washington-Beijing agreement that was not possible under the Bush/Cheney government by oilmen-caucus and their intentional undermining of any alternative future that would be less dependent on oil.

Poznan happens at the wrong time and in the wrong EU Member State, but nevertheless, it will become the stage where many participants will have now the courage to speak up, as they did not do in the last eight years. We do not expect a Paula Dobriasnsky change of heart, and we predict a sorry sight for the exit of an US Administration that left the world in shambles. But the participants will leave with the feeling that Hope Is On The Horizon. The Independent has just given voice to it.

 The EU Suffers From Not Having A Longer Term President - The Incoming First Half of 2009 Czech Presidency Starts Out With A Flap As Sarkozy And Blair Opt For Continuity In Dealing With The Global Financial Crisis. In Any Case, Czech President Vaclav Klaus Has Small Minority Views in Europe - He Even Does Not Believe In Human Caused Global Warming. Clouds Over The Czech Presidency.

France wants post-EU presidency financial summit.
PHILIPPA RUNNER, November 19, 2008,EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS

France has unveiled plans for a post-French EU presidency financial summit, despite the Czech Republic’s sensitivity over its upcoming chairmanship of the EU.

The Elysee Palace on Tuesday (18 November) formally announced an “international summit” to be held in Paris on 8 January, entitled “New World: Values, Development and Regulation,” continuing France’s ambition to create a “new model” for capitalism in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Mr Sarkozy - known for having a high-octane personality, is to chair another major international meeting.  The meeting is to bring together international leaders as well as intellectuals such as economist Joseph Stiglitz and philosopher Francis Fukuyama and will be co-chaired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former British PM Tony Blair.

The move comes after a G20 summit in Washington last weekend fell short of EU hopes to tighten global financial regulation.

The new Paris meeting is the latest in a long line of high-powered events organised by France since it took over the EU helm in July. An EU presidency normally hosts two EU summits, but Mr Sarkozy has already added one extraordinary Georgia war summit, one special financial crisis summit, a eurozone summit and a G4 financial summit.

***

French officials in October proposed that the eurozone should form an “economic government” led by Mr Sarkozy after the French EU presidency expires in December in order to maintain the “impetus, the energy” of the Elysee Palace’s efforts.

Mr Sarkozy and Mr Blair have also been floated as candidates for the Lisbon treaty-envisaged job of permanent EU president.

But the Czech Republic has resented any suggestions that a small, new EU state cannot lead the bloc in times of crisis.

Prague has also rejected MEPs’ accusations that it will be a lame duck presidency because it is split over ratification of the Lisbon treaty and because the ruling ODS party suffered defeats in local elections last month.

“Nobody can take the presidency away from the Czech Republic,” Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra said in October on the eurozone government idea.

Prague also plans to hold two extraordinary summits during its EU chairmanship, one on the Eastern Partnership of deeper integration with the EU’s post-Soviet neighbours and one to greet new US President Barack Obama.

French public policies minister Eric Besson toned down the language of the French president’s original statement on the 8 January event when talking to the Associated Press on Tuesday.

The meeting will be a “conference” not a summit, he said. “It’s not an operational and decision-making colloquium.”

——————-

Czech President, Vaclav Klaus came to the US in 2008 to back President Bush on his avoidance of dealing with climate change. He Spoke at that contrived Heartland Institute’s Anti-action New York City week. He even had the audacity to write to US Congress opposing Al Gore’s position on the issues please see:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54803

and our own

Vaclav Klaus, President of The Czech Republic, Sets The Timing For The Heartland Institute’s New York Climate Change Conference, He May Yet Become, Personally, A Serious Impediment On The Road To Copenhagen.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 9th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)

What sort of a European meeting with President Obama does President Klaus think he wants to chair?

We hope that this brewing flap can open the eyes of Europe that time has come for a real EU Presidency.

And The Czech Republic deserves every little bit of the contraversary it has created:

“The EU cannot punish a country for having pluralist opinions” says the following Opinion column - but this is not the point - the point is that a minority of the EU should not be allowed to speak for the Union - and Vaclav Klaus is just the extreme example. We listened to him in New York and we know that he is a very fringe point of view, President of a complicated EU Member State - in no way President of the EU.

————————

[Comment] Prague is as capable as any capital of taking over EU helm
MAREK NEUMAN, The EUobserver, November 19, 2008

COMMENT - After a Hallowe’en working lunch, French president Sarkozy assured his Czech counterpart, prime minister Topolanek, that France in no way intends to sabotage the Czech Republic’s EU Presidency, which the country assumes on 1 January, 2009.

Despite this, recent weeks have witnessed a large amount of analysis and commentary by international media dwelling upon the question of whether the Czech Republic is a suitable country to lead the EU in times of crisis or whether an experienced administration, such as the French one, would not be a better option.


The EU cannot punish a country for having pluralist opinions.

Although the prospects of the Czech Republic being stripped of its presidency are at the very least hypothetical, the numerous comments certainly deserve further thought, since any such activity would clearly break with the long-established traditions governing the union.

Moreover, just by invoking this debate, are we not already deliberating about the possibility of creating a European Union of two classes?

***

There have been several arguments put forward by commentators as to why the Czech Republic might not be a suitable president of the EU for the upcoming six months, but the Czech Republic’s demography has been the overriding issue for a variety of pundits.

It is true that the country, with its population of roughly 10 million, is not one of the largest states, but neither does it belong into the group of European micro-states. However, as a closer look into the history of the rotating EU presidency shows that the size of a country has never been an issue for consideration until now.

Countries such as Belgium or Luxembourg have periodically held the EU chairmanship and have performed just as well - or just as badly - as any of the major European powers in terms of efficiency. Moreover, Slovenia, the first new EU member state to hold EU Presidency, which held the function at the beginning of this year, certainly did not let its demographic size be an obstacle. Indeed, Ljubljana handed over the baton to France largely to wide acclaim from the Brussels community.

In fact, it turns out that some of the major integrative steps in European integration have been advanced while these small countries have been at the helm, most notably the Maastricht Treaty under the leadership of Luxembourg.

Commentators have also claimed that the Czech Republic lacks the experience to lead the union through the financial crisis.

It is important to realize that the Presidency is to a large extent a representative function, which the respective country uses to move certain points up or down on the agenda. By no means does the existence of the EU Presidency imply that decisions will not be brought about collectively. Interestingly, thus far, the Czech Republic has been surprisingly lightly hit by the financial crisis and therefore might even have something to teach in terms of economic expertise to even the largest EU members.

Domestic difficulties

It is true that the Czech Republic is currently going through a bit of internal political turmoil and the current government is somewhat less than stable. However, by now, the main policy goals of the upcoming EU presidency are set and one can expect these to be followed up by whatever political party is in power during the first six months of 2009, since the proposed agenda goes beyond partisan issues.

Additionally, there are other EU members who are also experiencing domestic difficulties, not least of all Belgium, but it is questionable whether the ability of these countries to lead the EU would be disputed if it were their turn.

Finally, the international peanut gallery have repeatedly carped about the growing euro-scepticism among some parts of the Czech political elite.

While it is true that the Czech president, who refuses even to fly the European flag at Prague Castle, is a hardened eurosceptic, this has no bearing on the country’s ability to effectively perform its tasks while holding the EU presidency, since these would be performed by the rest of the government, not the head of state.

But even in the most extreme scenario, such as having a euro-sceptic party or coalition in power, the scheduled country still could not be denied its turn at bat. The EU cannot punish a country for having pluralist opinions if it wants to uphold the image of a democratic entity.

Nevertheless, this most extreme scenario is hardly likely to materialise in the Czech Republic in the next six months, since both major political parties are strongly in favour of further European integration and have proven to be so for the last five years of the country’s membership.

How long must a member state wait to prove its loyalty to the European “idea” before it can enjoy all rights that come from membership? In a community of pluralist, democratic states, the personal beliefs of one politician cannot be a litmus test for allowing a country to assume the presidency.

It is crucial to realize what is the true essence of the EU presidency. The bearer of the chairmanship essentially just outlines the overall agenda for the union for the next six months. Naturally, with the world currently fighting the most severe economic crisis in a century, no one needs to be worried that this issue would not figure high on the agenda of the next presidency term, whatever the country actually in “power.”

When the European Union’s big-bang enlargement process was completed in 2007, the European Union acknowledged that the individual countries were not only fulfilling the legal requirements of membership - the Copenhagen criteria, but were also able to perform all tasks of membership - the rotating EU presidency included. The right to hold the EU presidency is the executive zenith of the numerous duties and obligations that come with EU membership.

Were the Czech Republic indeed stripped of its treaty-based right, the European Union would both internally and externally be sending the message of a hierarchy of important and less important countries.

Not that such a scenario is remotely likely, but the very discussion that is currently occurring is already an acknowledgment of this two-tiered Europe.

Objectively, the Czech Republic is as qualified to lead the European Union from 1 January 2009 as any other EU member.

Marek Neuman is a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

 At www.SustainabiliTank.info we keep saying this since the beginning of the year - December 2008 there will still be the Paula Dobriansky UN delegation and as such nothing will change and the meeting is a deliberate waste with UN personnel just creating travel mileage CO2 and hot air. That was the case in Bali, and this will be the case in Poznan.

The solution was easy - postpone Poznan Meeting to April 2009 so some start of a decision becomes possible and the needed input for Copenhagen in December 2009 becomes feasible.

The UN Secretary-general is touting the Copenhagen Roadway that starts with Poznan in order to come up with a Kyoto II. We heard from Danish Prime Minister that if there is no Kyoto II there will be a better Copenhagen I, but we told him that what he will get, because of the timing, rather a Poznan II. Now Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC office in Bonn, plainly agrees with our estimate when he realizes in public that the US has only one President at a time - and he well knows that there is no climate change business with US President N0. 43, and before Obama takes over from Bush, there will not be any negotiations. (period.!)

Oh! yes! UNSG Ban Ki-moon will take the paper we just posted, that he somehow thought to bring to the attention of the G-20 in Washington DC at their November 14th meeting - and read it at the opening of the COP-14 of the UNFCCC on December 1 in Poznan. He will then turn around smiling and say that the world has heard how important the subject is.

AND THAT WILL BE IT - and Yvo de Boer just declared that he understands that - that will be it!

Strangely, last night at an event for the Pacific Island States, a person representing a UN body, To be fair to him I do not divulge which important UN affiliate he represents, he told me that Obama will go to Poznan not as President-elect but as Senator (you know, like Al Gore, Timothy Wirth, and Bob Kerry went to  Rio in 1992.) I just did not have the heart to tell the gentleman that next week Obama will not be a Senator anymore. He leaves the Senate so someone else can be appointed and gain in seniority - this is another right and easily predictable thing we know. This story just shows how deep the UN lives in the unreality of its comfortable cocoon.

———–

OSLO (Reuters) November 17, 2008 - President-elect Barack Obama will not attend United Nations talks in Poland next month working on a new treaty for fighting global warming, as per the the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

“There is not going to be an Obama delegation in Poznan,” Yvo de Boer, head of the Secretariat, told a news conference in Germany that was also shown on the Internet. The 190-nation talks will be held from December 1-12 in the Polish city of Poznan.

“There is one president at a time,” he said. Obama will take over from President George W. Bush on January 20, 2009.”

After Obama won the presidency last month, de Boer expressed hopes that Obama might attend the Poznan meeting, which is due to work on details of a new climate treaty.

A new pact to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol is meant to be in place by the end of 2009. De Boer said that the U.S. delegation in Poznan would liaise closely with Obama’s team.

——————

We believe that there will be an Obama observer at Poznan, but he will have a clear mandate to keep away from the negotiations. Obama does not want to become a co-owner of a sinking ship. He will in due time take the reins in his hands and wants to have free hands to do so. No last minute bail-out please! A bailout that leaves him holding an empty bag? No thanks.

If Yvo de Boer is afraid to recognize the above, and still wants to convey that he is playing in tune with Obama - this is another case of UN misleading the innocents. The Poznan party is on - the decision making process is off!

From:      levy at tcf.org
Subject: Articles that may interest you
Date:      November 17, 2008

 First an interview for Atlantic Magazine, then an e-mail we got from Daniel Levy:

The Interview - Daniel Levy On Obama, Netanyahu and the Settlements. http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/a…

The e-mail based on an article in Haaretz: /www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037283.html
As per Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic Magazine - November 17, 2008 - Daniel Levy, the director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation (which is run by a blogger, it should be noted) and the director of the Prospects for Peace initiative at the Century Foundation, is one of the smartest analysts of the Middle East conflict in Washington, or anywhere else. He often veers too left for my taste (on only one occasion, I believe, I veered too left for his taste), but he’s a rigorous thinker and is steeped in the painful and complicated details of the ongoing crisis. Levy, who keeps his own blog, of course, has been a player in negotiations through the 1990s, and brings real-world experience — and real Israeli experience — to the conversation. As we enter the Obama era, it seemed worthwhile to send Levy some questions:

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Are you a Zionist?

Daniel Levy: The answer is a yes, albeit a more complex yes than I’d like it to be.  I would describe myself as a Zionist on at least three levels.  First, and at the most practical level, having made aliyah to Israel from the U.K., taken up citizenship, and made my life there, my Zionism meets the more classical and exclusionary definitions.  Second, I do consider the Jews to be a people, and support that people’s right to self-determination in a nation-state, Israel.  Finally, and in many ways derived from both of the above, I consider Israel to be central to my own Jewishness and my identity–more than a religious affiliation, it’s a national and cultural affiliation to modern Israel, the language, to Tel Aviv, etc.

Where it gets complex is this–sixty years after the establishment of the state, and alongside all its accomplishments, the onus is now on Israel and its founding ideology, Zionism, to demonstrate in practice that it can be non-expansionist in territorial terms toward its neighbors, and that it can confer genuine equality on the non-Jewish citizens of the state.  Most troubling of course is that for more than two-thirds of its existence, Israel has imposed a hostile occupation on another people, the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and to be blunt, that occupation will have to end for Israel to survive.  To the extent to which a Zionist narrative has been used to drive forward and justify the post-’67 settlement enterprise (and the discrimination within Israel), it is a Zionism that actually works against the interests of Israel, and not, of course, the Zionism that I am signing up for.

JG: You write about the occupation in a way that suggests you believe it was Israel’s fault from the outset.  Whose fault do you believe it is?  Put another way, do you think the Khartoum declaration of late 1967–the so-called “three noes” — set the stage for the tragedy that followed, or is it not relevant?

DL: The Khartoum noes represent a more complex issue than is often assumed.  The setting is, of course, after the ‘67 war, with Israel in control of vast swaths of Egyptian and Syrian territory, as well as the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.  Israel expresses a readiness to talk peace and understandably interprets the three noes of Khartoum as, well, being a negative answer.  But historians suggest it wasn’t that simple.  See this long quote below from pages 258-259 of Avi Shlaim’s book The Iron Wall:

“Israel’s leaders watched with keen anticipation to see what conclusions the Arab leaders would draw from their military defeat.  The conference ended with the adoption of the famous three noes of Khartoum: no recognition, no negotiation, and no peace with Israel.  On the face of it these declarations showed no sign of readiness for compromise, and this is how Israel interpreted them.  In fact, the conference was a victory for the Arab moderates who argued for trying to obtain the withdrawal of Israeli forces by political rather than military means.  Arab spokesmen interpreted the Khartoum declarations to mean no formal peace treaty, but not a rejection of a state of peace; no direct negotiations, but not a refusal to talk through third parties; and no de jure recognition of Israel, but acceptance of its existence as a state.  President Nasser and King Hussein set the tone at the summit and made it clear subsequently that they were prepared to go much further than ever before toward a settlement with Israel.  At Khartoum, Nasser and Hussein reached a genuine understanding and formed a united front against the hard-liners…The Khartoum summit thus marked a real turning point in Nasser’s attitude to Israel.  At Khartoum, Nasser advised, and indeed urged, King Hussein to explore the possibility of a peaceful settlement with Israel.  This was, of course, not known in Israel at the time.  As far as Israel was concerned, the Khartoum declarations closed every door and every window that might lead to a peace settlement.  On October 17 the cabinet took a decision that amounted to an official cancellation of the decision of 19 June.”

The famous three noes are explained as being an opening position and that Jordanian King Hussein actually had something of a mandate from Nasser’s Egypt to begin exploratory talks with Israel.  We know those took place.  We also now know that Egypt itself was putting out peace feelers prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  In the end, of course, that Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was reached, but only after another needless war–something that might unfortunately be repeated with Syria now.

***

But here’s the bigger picture: the UN in 1947 in UNGAR 181 calls for a division of mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state according to a territorial ratio of approximately 55 percent to 45 percent.  After the War of Independence, Israel is in control of not 55, but 78 percent of the land, and builds its state in that area.

After the ‘67 war, Israel controls 100 percent.  I would argue that Israel’s big achievement today is that we have reached a situation where the Arab world is saying yes to the 1949-67 division of 78:22–not the 1947 plan, but also not one centimeter more than the ‘67 lines.

Some may argue that if Israel already got a yes to 78 percent, we can surely get it to 80 percent, or 85 percent, or even more–I think that is neither realistic nor desirable, and in attempting to achieve it, we are liable to commit national suicide.

So my bottom line is that Israel needs to take yes for an answer, which means ending the occupation. And let’s face it, the fact that the occupation is so entrenched, especially the civilian settlements and their supportive infrastructure–none of that can be considered a sensible or legitimate response even to the traditional interpretation of the Khartoum noes.  Does it justify Palestinian violence?  No.  Is the post-’67 settlement enterprise a huge mistake for the Zionist project and an albatross around the neck of Israel?  Absolutely yes.

We can argue about the history, but the imperative today is to seize the opportunity to entrench the ‘67 borders, a two-state reality, and to end the occupation (with agreed, minor, and mutual land swaps involving the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but respecting the 78:22 principle).

***

JG: Man, you know nothing turns me on more than long quotations from Avi Shlaim.  There’s an unbiased observer for you.  Anyway, next question: Who’s to blame today?  Or put another way, why is the process so locked-down right now: Israeli political paralysis, Palestinian religious extremism, the continued presence of settlements in the West Bank, American disinterest, all of the above?

DL: In answer to your latest delightful question, I’m not too keen on playing the blame game.  I could agree to all of the reasons you gave and add lots more.  But I think we need to get beyond who is to blame and to think constructively and creatively about how to get out of this mess.  The situation is not good.  Neither Israelis nor Palestinians benefit, and while scoring points can always be fun, it doesn’t get us very far.  In fact, I would even say that blame is secondary to a bigger problem which is that we are locked into a process that is increasingly incapable of delivering–and we need to recognize that.

I would suggest that there are two basic design faults to what we call the peace process, whether that be Oslo or Annapolis or everything in between.  One, the two parties have gone about as far as they’re going to go to finding solutions in bilateral negotiations.  What is left to do–the final points of closure on core issues–is obviously the hardest bit, and I don’t think the parties can do that alone, especially not with the current leaderships one both sides.  There is almost a perverse incentive at work to postpone hard decisions and to negotiate indefinitely–that is the path of least resistance in terms of domestic politics for Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Two, the Palestinians are expected to successfully build their own economy, security forces and institutions of governance while in a pre-state condition of pervasive foreign (Israel) occupation that includes an expanding civilian settler population–that needs to be protected by the IDF.  The idea is that the Palestinians prove themselves and then Israel makes progress–it has not and cannot work that way.

So both sides are struck.  The process suffers from the laws of diminishing returns as we keep trying this failed and flawed method and it does no favors to Israel as it creates circumstances in which we are unable to extract ourselves from a predicament which severely damages our interests.  I would suggest that what we need now is effective external intervention to break this impasse, and realistically this would have to be U.S.-led.

JG: Okay, external intervention is needed.  What, exactly, does President Obama do?  How does he get the Israelis to remove settlements?  How does he strengthen the PA and marginalize Gaza?

DL: To an extent, it does depend on what kind of an Israeli government an Obama presidency is working with.  If the Israeli leadership at the time is not clear in its willingness to remove settlements, withdraw on the West Bank, and implement a two-state solution, then I would recommend not investing in a peace process just for appearances’ sake.  Such a process would, after all, not succeed, further undermining both hope and credibility, and the last thing we need is another failed process.  Under such circumstances–and most people will assume that this is the scenario of a Netanyahu premiership (although I’d at least test the proposition that Netanyahu can be a pragmatist after all)–I would suggest that the Obama administration makes its explicit declarative intention as being to keep the two-state option alive and viable.  That means focusing on preventing new settlements, outposts, and settlement-expansion (and also on allowing the Palestinians to reconstitute a reformed PLO and Palestinian national movement).  A singular American focus on settlements–and that can be lots of talking and monitoring and upbraiding, it doesn’t have to be linking aid–can have a fascinating, liberating, and even decisive impact on the internal Israeli debate about settlements.  The Obamaites could also ask Bill Clinton a thing or two about handling Netanyahu, as he played no minor role in Netanyahu’s first term as PM being cut short to barely 30 months.

On the other hand, if one is dealing with an Israeli government that has identified an Israeli national interest and even Israel’s survival with a West Bank withdrawal, two-state solution, and settlement removal–as is the case with the outgoing Olmert government and with Prime Ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni, then I’d suggest a different tack.  The key in this scenario would be for the U.S. to come up with creative ways for addressing the legitimate Israeli concerns regarding what happens in the territories from which Israel withdraws–how does one guarantee a predictability of especially security, but also of governance outcomes once Israel and the IDF is no longer there.  So it’s about providing compelling, attractive, and even enticing answers to the questions that postpone the needed Israeli withdrawal.

I say creative because the current way to answer that question is all about building Palestinian capacity without changing the basic circumstances.  And I am convinced that cannot work.  The alternative package that the U.S. would have to take a lead in putting together would lean heavily on an international role for a period of time in the newly de-occupied Palestinian state–with a particular focus on guaranteeing security-related issues.  Yes, I am talking about an international force, but only once there’s an agreed border and as a post-occupation partial replacement for the IDF–and the U.S. would not be the main provider of troops (numbers anyway are not large).

That’s the kind of plan the new administration should be thinking about, while in addition, American diplomatic engagement would also almost certainly be needed to finalize an Israeli-Palestinian agreement (American proposals and hard work to carry the sides across the finishing line), and additional incentives, both bilateral and international as appropriate, for both parties–including in the security arena, costs of relocating settlers, and Palestinian refugee compensation.

As for the PA, Gaza, etc., virtually everything we have done so far in supposedly strengthening the moderates and intervening on behalf of one side has been either counter-productive or ineffective.  One can’t marginalize Gaza –it’s part of the two-state solution.  And we’re most certainly going to have to bring Hamas inside the tent to make this work.  I think that’s doable and the first imperative for the U.S. is to leave the Palestinians to do their own internal politics, and to reconstitute their own reformed national movement.  I’m not suggesting U.S. mediation, but the removal of what amounts to a U.S. veto on Palestinian national reconciliation.  Our basic demand from a newly unified Palestinian national leadership should be: no use of terror and agreement on an authorized interlocutor for U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel.

None of this will be easy, including the internal Palestinian stuff.  The Egyptians are working on that right now, but the prospects are not good, although they would be improved if the U.S. sent signals that they approve of these talks, and if other actors, such as the Saudis, were encouraged to support these mediation efforts.

That’s enough for now.  There is of course much more to say on what needs to be done on the regional level, and of how to use the Arab Peace Initiative as a central ingredient for peace making and as an incentive for Israel.  But let’s save that for later.

***

JG: Over the next four years, what are the chances that we’ll see another Arab-Israeli war, in either Lebanon, Gaza or the West Bank?

DL: Unfortunately, the chances of another war are not insignificant, although there is no inevitability to there being further war and if we act smart this outcome can be avoided.  However, if one looks at the trajectory of hostility to Israel, instability in the region, and misguided Israeli policies, then that makes for a worrying trend line.

Hezbollah, of course, maintains its own militia in Lebanon and that would be the focus of any future Israeli-Lebanon clash–as it was two years ago.  I would argue that the smartest move Israel could make regarding Lebanon would be to remove those excuses (or reasons) that Hezbollah uses to justify its maintenance of an independent armed capacity that actually resonate inside Lebanese politics.

What would that mean?  Israel could hand over the Shebaa Farms (which are of no value and which Israel has no intention of keeping anyway), could start ending IDF over flights of Lebanon, and could allow the Lebanese armed forces to equip itself as a more serious national army (although not with offensive capacities that would threaten Israel).  These measures would create a situation whereby Hezbollah would be faced with a dilemma, as its justifications for its current military posture would be removed.  Hezbollah would then have to rely on external explanations (such as the Palestinian cause), or risk being seen as explicitly serving an Iranian, not Lebanese, agenda.  Such moves by Israel would actually limit Hezbollah’s room for maneuver, and I would suggest that they would make future clashes less likely.  Of course, Hezbollah and the state machinery of Lebanon may become indistinguishable–Hezbollah is already part of the government and could assume a more leading role.  But in most ways that only complicates their decision-making further when it comes to entering conflict with Israel.  Bottom line: there are things Israel, the U.S., and the international community can be doing to help stabilize Lebanon, to limit Hezbollah’s choices, and to make confrontation less likely.

On the Palestinian front, there is ongoing, if often low-intensity, conflicts. If anything the default position is still the war footing.  The current ceasefire is testimony to that–a secession of hostilities of limited duration.

Absent a resolution to the basic conflicts, new rounds of violence, whether more or less intense, can be expected to break out.  Netanyahu’s suggestion for economic peace is of course a joke and will certainly not prevent this violence.  But as I discussed earlier, the Annapolis model is also not working and that too will collapse into violence (and expect some of the Palestinian security forces to be involved in the violence) if its failings are not corrected.  The most important preventive action to be taken in this regard would be to remove the casus belli and to end the 1967 occupation with the kind of provisions and in the fashion that I described above.

Of course, that does not mean there will be no threat to Israel’s security, or that everyone will be happy, but: 1, this is a precondition without which further conflict is pretty much guaranteed; and 2, it offers the most promising sustainable security environment for Israel and places Israel in a far stronger position to deal with future threats (defending Israel from an agreed upon border, no settlers to protect, increased regional and international legitimacy, basic neutralizing of Palestinian grievance narrative, etc.).

In addition, there are other threat scenarios–Syria may not wait forever for a peace deal, neither Egyptian nor Jordanian stability are guaranteed, and Iranian bellicose rhetoric continues–but Israel is in a far better position to manage all of these if we can get beyond our current occupation predicament with the Palestinians, and if we can do that then I think Israel will have an answer for any of these uncertainties.  I believe we can get it right; I’m just deeply worried that we won’t.

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The above assumes a two State Solution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict which entails first a solution of the internal conflict of the Palestinians, and which presents the danger that rather then Hamas led Gaza becoming a PLO led component of the Palestinian Southern entity, the Palestinian Northern entity of the West Bank, becomes a Hamas dominated entity as well - and the whole Palestinian State becomes more of a problem then the expected solution.

At SustainabiliTank.info we rather believe in a three States Solution, where Israel makes its agreements with the West Bank and leaves the rebellious “Hamas-in-Gaza” which we like to call - Hamasstan - plainly hanging in the air until someone creates internally  the sense needed to bring them to the table under a formula already proved in the other/larger entity that was created first. We believe this to be a better staged evolution then the one described without such stages by David Levy.  ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com )

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Four Middle East Crises on Obama’s Horizon.
By Daniel Levy, in Haaretz of November 16, 2008.

No one should be surprised that president-elect Barack Obama’s first press conference, three days after his historic November 4th victory, was devoted almost exclusively to the economy. Obama was also quick to remind reporters that there is only one president at a time, and his turn does not begin until January 20. Israel’s upcoming February 11 election? Recent American presidents have had a decidedly mixed record of intervention in Israeli elections. President Bill Clinton hastily convened the March 1996 Summit of Peacemakers at Sharm el-Sheikh, but it did not save Shimon Peres in the polls that May. Clinton was more effective in ensnaring a peace-shy prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the Wye River Memorandum - paving the way to Netanyahu’s downfall and Ehud Barak’s May 1999 election victory. Before that, president George H.W. Bush tripped up Yitzhak Shamir on the issue of settlements, assisting Yitzhak Rabin in Israel’s 1992 vote.

A new president, however, is unlikely to dip his hand in the shark-infested waters of Israeli politics, certainly not on Day 1, especially since the possible impact would be hard to predict. The Obama team would be best advised to simply remind Israelis of its own standpoint: a commitment to two states and to advancing the peace process “from the minute I’m sworn into office” (Obama in Amman, July 2008). To forget this pledge until after February 10 would in itself be an intervention of sorts, and an unwelcome one. Will Kadima, Labor or Meretz be able to ride the wave of Obama expectations? That will be for them to attempt and for the voters to decide.

- (2) Another upcoming Middle East election the new American president will have to navigate is in Iran, where presidential polls are scheduled for June 2009. The tricky balancing act here will be, on the one hand, not to lose time testing direct engagement with Iran, an Obama election pledge, while, at the same time, doing nothing that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could use to strengthen his own re-election efforts. Paradoxically, a less threatening, more open-for-business tone from the U.S. may be the best way to undermine Ahmadinejad. Direct talks with Ahmadinejad are very unlikely to feature on the immediate Obama to-do list, and would almost certainly be ill advised. In any event, he is not the key address for diplomatic approaches. That would more likely be supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Expect discreet feelers and exploratory contacts with key Khamenei confidants, such as Ali Akbar Velayati and Ali Larijani, and expect not to know that they are taking place.

Israel’s best posture on this is surely to avoid any public disagreement with the U.S. on Iran, to ensure that Israel has input into the agenda for talks, and to give American-Iranian negotiations a real chance, as the best option for addressing our concerns.

- (3) For Syria, a two-year waiting game ends on Inauguration Day. President Bashar al-Assad apparently decided some time ago that his best bet was to wait out the implacable opposition of French president Jacques Chirac and American president Bush. Syria has recently prepared for this day, for instance by relaunching peace talks with Israel via Turkish mediation, by assuming a constructive role regarding Lebanon, and by moving closer to Europe, most notably to Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

In some senses, Syria is seen as low-hanging fruit for a U.S. re-engagement that would reshuffle Middle East alliances in its favor. After all, Syria is a relevant player when it comes to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian arena. A reorientation of Syria’s policies will not take place overnight or following a brief diplomatic flirtation. But a new approach to U.S.-Syria bilateral relations, with reasonably calibrated benchmarks and including American support for Israeli-Syrian talks, stands a good chance of success. Look out for early indications of that change.

- (4) Finally, how to deal with Palestinian internal politics? One of the more devastating legacies of the Bush years was the failure to constructively navigate the Palestinian transition away from the strongman rule of Yasser Arafat and the single-party domination of Fatah. A stable Palestine and sustainable peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis cannot be built on a divided Palestinian house. The American position has been one of encouraging Palestinian division. That needs to change urgently, not by an Obama administration directly engaging Hamas, but by it discreetly signaling an end to the American veto on Palestinian national reconciliation along lines similar to the Saudi-brokered Mecca deal of February 2007. Given the stop-start Palestinian talks now being brokered by Egypt, there might be some urgency to the American policy re-think on this issue - the peace process is deeply flawed in its absence.

- (5) Of course, Iraq will loom largest when president-elect Obama turns his attention to the Middle East - and therein lies the core challenge: Will the next administration, unlike its predecessor, appreciate both the extent and the nature of the interconnectivity between the region’s varied crises? The signs at least are encouraging.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

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As we said earlier - we do not think that the internal reconciliation within the Palestinian side should be allowed to hold back attempt at progress in the other areas. We really do not believe that the administration of Gaza will change before there is a success with the  easier dialogue between Israel and a Palestinian West-Bank entity.  The problem is that settlements were removed from Gaza, but this made things worse.

Opinion:

GM Must Remake the Mass Transit System It Murdered.
Sunday 16 November 2008, Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams, also on truthout.

Bail out General Motors? The people who murdered our mass transit system?

First let them remake what they destroyed.

GM responded to the 1970s gas crisis by handing over the American market to energy-efficient Toyota and Honda.

GM met the rise of the hybrids with “light trucks.”

GM built a small electric car, leased a pilot fleet to consumers who loved it, and then forcibly confiscated and trashed them all.

GM now wants to market a $40,000 electric Volt that looks like a cross between a Hummer and a Cadillac and will do nothing to meet the Solartopian needs of a green-powered Earth.

It demands re-tooling and re-training. But GM’s special role in history must now evolve into using its infrastructure to restore the mass transit system - and ecological balance - it has helped destroy.

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Harvey Wasserman is co-author, with Bob Fitrakis, of four books on election protection which are available at www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. His Harvey Wasserman’s History of the US is at www.harveywasserman.com along with Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030.

The Crisis & What to Do About It. The salient feature of the current financial crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock - the crisis was generated by the financial system itself.

By George Soros

Volume 55, Number 19 · December 4, 2008, The New York Review of Books.

www.nybooks.com/articles/22113?utm_medium=email&utm_