The Anti-Chemical Weapons Norm Is Not in Danger

The cruel violence of the Syrian regime should not have surprised anyone, nor should the fact that it continued to engage in it without concern for the ambiguous threats issues by the US and others. Regimes like Bashar al-Asad’s have nothing to gain and everything to lose by compromising and giving up some of their power.

Now that the regime may have used chemical weapons against the opposition, some analysts and advocates are calling it a “game changer,” arguing that American credibility is on the line, requiring the United States to intervene. And if it doesn’t intervene after the small-scale use of chemical weapons in Syria, Jonathan Tobin asks, how can we trust Washington’s promises to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon?

Others have rightly pointed out the absurdity of calling for intervention now, after the regime has tortured and killed tens of thousands of Syrians with conventional weapons and methods. To this, Max Fisher responds that more is at stake now—namely, the norm against the use of chemical weapons in the international system.

But if we are going to think about what constitutes a “red line” that might trigger a more direct military intervention in Syria, I’m not sure that strengthening the anti-chemical weapons norm is a good enough reason: because the norm against the use of chemical weapons is not endangered of being undermined by what happens in Syria.

Since World War Two very few states have used chemical weapons. The US used them in Vietnam. Evidence suggests Egypt used some in the 1960s during its involvement in the Yemeni civil war, while Libya used some in a 1987 conflict with Chad. Iraq used it against the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War, and also against the Kurds in 1988. Beyond this, there is little evidence that many states have considered using them in many circumstances.

The reason is because the norm against the use of chemical weapons is very strong. The Chemical Weapons Convention, with 188 member-states, is the most formal representation of this. But consider, too, what a norm is. It is a “standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity,” which incorporates a logic of appropriateness—a sense that specific behaviors are required as some sort of baseline for states to participate in international political life. The overwhelming majority of states want to be recognized as “good citizens” of the world.

Customary practice, the norm of sovereignty, and the laws of war have all entrenched the use of violence under particular circumstances. In the case of conflict, good citizenship requires controlling levels of violence, and that means that violence must based primarily on the use of conventional weapons. Indeed, the evidence suggests states are increasingly moving to control “excess” violence toward this end.

When it comes to chemical weapons—or nuclear or biological weapons—the exceptions to the norm proves the rule. Even a cursory glance at those states that have used them indicates that their interest in violating the norm is specific to their conditions, leaders, and motivations. If the US doesn’t intervene immediately in Syria because of the use of chemical weapons, no state that wouldn’t already be thinking of it will look at Syria and believe that Washington doesn’t care about chemical weapons, and therefore decide to use them. What matters are the particular regime dynamics at play in a given place and time.

This isn’t an argument against intervention or against considering the need to maintain the norm as a reason for intervention. It’s to say that intervention is a big deal, and we need to be careful about why we might go in. And if we’re thinking about implications and comparisons, instead of focusing on the use of chemical weapons at this point in time, I think the lesson is rather very strongly about the need to deter mass killing near the beginning, before regimes come to believe they either have impunity to attack their own citizens or feel cornered enough to try anything.

On Gaza-Israel, 2008-09

I published an article review of two articles that dealt with the 2008-09 battle between Israel and Gaza. The articles are Benjamin S. Lambeth, “Israel’s War in Gaza: A Paradigm of Effective Military Learning and Adaptation,” International Security 37:2 (Fall 2012): 81-118, and Jerome Slater, “Just War Moral Philosophy and the 2008-09 Israeli Campaign in Gaza,” International Security 37:2 (Fall 2012): 44-80.

The Power of Nationalism: A micro-example

Whether one agrees with Samer Issawi’s politics or not, I thought his description of his family’s activism was a powerful illustration of what nationalism means at the individual level. Issawi, a Palestinian on a hunger strike in an Israeli jail, wrote

I am not the first member of my family to be jailed on my people’s long march towards freedom. My grandfather, a founding member of the PLO, was sentenced to death by the British Mandate authorities, whose laws are used by Israel to this day to oppress my people; he escaped hours before he was due to be executed. My brother, Fadi, was killed in 1994, aged just 16, by Israeli forces during a demonstration in the West Bank following the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in Hebron. Medhat, another brother, has served 19 years in prison. My other brothers, Firas, Ra’afat and Shadi were each imprisoned for five to 11 years. My sister, Shireen, has been arrested numerous times and has served a year in prison. My brother’s home has been destroyed. My mother’s water and electricity have been cut off. My family, along with the people of my beloved city Jerusalem, are continuously harassed and attacked, but they continue to defend Palestinian rights and prisoners.

The sense of broad family involvement and repeated sacrifice (as expressed primarily through jail time) tells us something about the level of commitment to the Palestinian cause and the belief in the idea of Palestinian peoplehood, self-determination, and nationalism. One can imagine other outs at certain moments such as emigration, political quietism, and a resigned acceptance to one’s fate. Yet none are mentioned here.

For Israelis who continue to believe that Palestinians are not a people worthy of self-determination or that Jordan may serve as the Palestinian state, Issawi’s statement provides a very inconvenient set of facts. Many Palestinians sure do think they are a people and seem determined to stand by that claim.

I am not suggesting this tells us everything we need to know about the likely outcome. Self-determination can be frustrated for a long time, perhaps indefinitely. But it does suggest to me that certain arguments just won’t have much traction. Pretending that we can go back to a time before Palestinian nationalism, or before Zionism for that matter, was a powerful ideology is pure fantasy.

 

 

One Sunni Imagination: The US-Shia Alliance

On a long drive in Jordan, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent – let’s call him Amr – shared his grand theory of Middle East politics. His perspective would make Vali Nasr proud because for Amr, the basic divide in the Middle East is the Sunni-Shia divide (though with an American-Zionist twist).

On a personal level, Amr, a pious Sunni, expressed only disgust for Shiites, deriding them as false Muslims. Yet Christians and Jews were okay.

In the region, he lamented the rise of Shiism and, in particular, the rise of Iran, the heart of the Shiite world. Iran, already in control of Iraq, is seeking control of other Arab states as well, such as Bahrain and Yemen.

The pivotal Sunni-Shia moment was the hanging of Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006. Saddam was not hanged on just any day but rather at the start of Iraqi Sunnis celebrating Eid al-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice), a major Islamic holiday. In Amr’s eyes, this was done as an intentional slight to Sunnis and to demonstrate a marked shift of power in Iraq, from Saddam’s (Sunni) rule to the post-2003 (Shia) regime.

Saddam’s last words were especially important: “Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians.” Not only were his executioners merely agents of neighboring Shia Iran, but by pairing “Americans” and “Persians” he also asserted that Iran was acting in concert with the United States.

Yes, while it might sound odd to American ears, Amr argued in the course of the discussion that Iran was working with the United States. After all, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq handed the country to Iran.

An Iran-US-Hezbollah-Israel alliance against the Sunni world.

When Sunni Iraq had a nuclear program, Israel bombed it in 1981. The United States invaded in 2003 to end Iraq’s alleged nuclear pursuits. Yet with Shia Iran, Israel and the United States have taken no military action despite years of complaining about Iranian nuclear research.

The United States was perfectly willing to intervene militarily in Libya against Muammar Qaddafi, a Sunni. But despite intense pressure, Washington has held back on the question of intervening in Syria where the regime is dominated by Alawites, a Shia offshoot. Israel, too, seems to favor the maintenance of the Asad regime.

In Egypt, the United States abandoned a Sunni, President Hosni Mubarak, and has accepted the rule of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. While one might think the Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni organization, Amr sees it as under the control of Iran. That explains Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Egypt and the general warming of ties between Egypt and Iran after decades of tension. When Morsi and Shafiq were in the presidential run-off (2012), Washington and especially then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made sure that Shafiq lost.

In Lebanon, why has Israel not killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader? The Israeli Mossad can hit leaders all over the world but cannot find a leader right next door? The answer must be that Israel and Hezbollah are cooperating.

Amr’s story, interesting in its own right, reminds us that political theories need not be un-done by inconvenient facts. Perhaps because of our human tendency to fit information to our pre-existing worldview, contrary information gets ignored, manipulated, re-defined in a way that does not challenge our core approach. So the fact that Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006; that Israel attacked a Syrian nuclear site in 2007; or that the vitriol between Iran and Israel/US is regular and heated matters little for Amr’s grand theory.

Somehow I think that even if Israel or the United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities tomorrow, Amr would find a way of accounting for that seeming anomaly without altering his basic theory.

The story also helps make clear the difficulty for the United States in the region. In general today, the United States is excoriated both for what is seen as too much involvement (e.g. Iraq 2003+) or too little (e.g. Syria today). Washington has been so involved for so long that any action or non-action is interpreted in a nefarious manner. With stories like this one, I don’t imagine the challenge of U.S. foreign policy will change anytime soon.

Why Apologize?

Some folks at Commentary are, as expected, unhappy that Israel has apologized to Turkey for the deaths of Turkish citizens (and one Turkish-American) on the Mavi Marmara. Jonathan Tobin argues that it means far less than assumed, since the Turks aren’t interested in a genuine reconciliation (though he later wrote that he wasn’t as worried about Israel’s future being endangered by the apology as others on the right are).

On the other hand, Michael Rubin called the apology a “disaster.” Contending that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyp Erdoğan is “a deeply ideological man who, at his core, does not believe Israel should exist,” he believes that the apology will makes matters much worse for Israel because it emboldens its enemies, including those—like Erdoğan—who facilitate and support terrorism.

There has long been a debate over whether Erdoğan and the AKP more generally are radical Islamists in disguise, or whether they are pragmatic religious conservatives. Rubin seems to follow Daniel Pipes’ perception of Erdoğan as a wild-eyed fanatic bent on re-imposing the Ottoman Empire on the Middle East.

Putting that specific argument aside, Rubin and, to a lesser extent, Commentary pundits generally harbor a vision of Israel that harkens back to Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir—that of a people who dwells alone in the world. In this conceptualization Israel’s rivals, antagonists, and enemies can never be trusted, and so Israel—supported by the Jewish diaspora—must hunker down into a defensive position and never leave the “safety” of its shell. Because when it does, it will always be attacked. Instead, it must wait for others to come around to its own perspective.

This argument is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t allow for any Israeli agency or initiative, and it puts Israel at a disadvantage by making it reactive instead of proactive. It prevents Israel from controlling of its own security and forces it to rely on the actions and dictates of others. And, in its darkest moments, it opens the door to accusing those in Israel and abroad who support a less aggressive policy of bad faith, weakness, or ill intent.

There’s no evidence that hunkering down and refusing to engage with others out of anger or fear benefits states. Indeed, it seems more petulant than anything else.

On the apology specifically, there is a growing body of work that explores the benefits of apologies in international relations. It suggests that Jerusalem can be unhappy with Turkish policy and remain at odds on some issues, but still reap several advantages from apologizing.

First, the specific type (or “ritual”) of apology is important, not least because there are cultural differences in how apologies are offered and received (which may, in turn, be at the heart of Rubin’s and others’ negative perception of the issue). There is a world of difference between prostrating oneself before an adversary, and acknowledging mistakes that were made. Recognizing the latter is a common form of communication. Note that Netanyahu’s specific apology was for “operational mistakes” that led to the loss of life. It was not—as Tobin does point out—a recognition of the wrongness of the military action. Nor does it absolve the flotilla members of any responsibility, or say anything about Israel’s future use of force.

Second, apologies of whatever sort are useful for putting embittering issues behind the parties and then moving forward to discuss contemporary issues of importance, or common interests. There is some evidence that acts of contrition can serve as a first step toward reconciliation (though not in all cases), and certainly trust between countries engaged in negotiations is critical to success.

But when an act of violence in particular is left to fester as an act of perfidy in the minds of the group against whom the “crime” was committed, it reifies the violence itself and grows into a larger obstacle to normalization; and the longer it remains the harder it is to overcome. In this case, it’s clear that Israel has much to benefit from improved relations with Turkey (shared intelligence, airspace, trade, to name only a few); allowing the Mavi Marmara affair to continue to block progress on these other fronts is just counter-productive. If the lack of an apology serves to remind Turkish negotiators of Israel’s untrustworthiness and inability to empathize with Turks’ needs (as they see it), then the negotiations are more likely to falter.

Third, apologies between political leaders can trickle down to societies, which may come to view each other in more positive terms. This can have a feedback effect on leaders who wish to account for public opinion. In Turkey’s case, Erdoğan’s populism has long been remarked on. If the Turkish public sees Israel more positively, he, too, will have to incorporate that into his own policies.

Fourth, a country that refuses to acknowledge when it was wrong, or when its actions led to serious and unintended harm to others, is less likely to be taken seriously when it demands the same from others. Terrorism is an ever-present threat to Israelis. Jerusalem cannot expect sympathy and support from others when its citizens are murdered if it doesn’t provide the same. No, I am not saying the deaths on the Mavi Marmara are akin to terrorism. I am putting the killing of civilians in a larger context, and like it or not Israel does have to operate in the broader world of norms and legal structures. If it ignores these norms and laws even in more ambiguous cases such as this one, it will be harder to demand justice for its own causes.

While Turkey under the AKP may well sympathize more with the Palestinians, even Hamas, than Israel, there are still plenty of issues that draw the two countries together that need to be addressed—including terrorism, Syria, Iran, energy, trade, and relations with the United States. It’s simply good foreign policy to recognize the differences between enemies, rivals, friends, and neutrals, and to recognize the importance of common interests.

Perhaps most telling when considering the balance sheet of the Israeli apology is that most Israeli security and political leaders attributed strategic and tactical benefits to one. Avigdor Lieberman was the only main player in Israel who opposes the apology as vehemently as Rubin.

The Resurgence of American Diplomacy in the Middle East

When President Barack Obama announced his trip to Israel, there was widespread speculation for the motivations. I thought it was a grab-bag of reasons, including for domestic political purposes, to connect (finally) with the Jewish-Israeli public, to improve personal relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to talk about Iran and Syria.

On these grounds the visit has already been a success. But it seems the trip was about American regional diplomacy at least as much as it was about the American-Israeli relationship. This makes sense: In his second term Obama is looking to shape his legacy, and can now be more proactive—as opposed to reactive, as he was at the onset of the Arab Awakening—in foreign affairs without having to worry about re-election. It’s clear now that the point of the visit was to set the conditions for an improvement in the U.S. position in the region.

For some time analysts have been convinced that the U.S. is on its way out of the Middle East, retreating or simply impotent in the wake of the Arab Awakening. But this argument rests on a consideration of American hard power only, reads Obama’s hesitation in his first term into his second, and ignores Obama’s own modus operandi.

To understand Obama’s foreign policy we need to look at the preference he’s had for engaging with Republicans on domestic policy. Here he’s adopted a patient, low-key role. His habit has been to let other prominent individuals or groups engage in public battles over a given issue, and at some moment near the end move quietly in to offer suggestions—not orders or demands—to both sides of a dispute. In this way, he persuades them that butting heads has not worked, but that compromise will.

Obama’s trip to Israel was an exercise in in this type of American soft power. First, during his time in Israel, he charmed Netanyahu, a man with whom he previously had very tense personal relations. Having created space with its leaders, Obama then gave a stirring speech to Israeli students at the Jerusalem Convention Center. He highlighted the Jewish connection to the area, bore witness to the Jewish/Zionist struggles over time (including their contemporary security concerns), and called on them to act now in the name of Israeli Jewishness and democracy, and justice for Palestinians. These themes were echoed in a shorter speech at Yad Vashem. His visit to sites of memory and identity in Israel also validated Jewish-Israelis’ Zionism.

While critics argue that this is pandering or represent the usual ignoring of Palestinians, connecting with Israeli public opinion is important. No final agreement will be ratified in Israel unless politicians know enough Israelis (particularly Jewish Israelis) are on board with it. Given the skepticism of the Palestinians and the peace process more generally among that cohort, laying the groundwork isn’t just good politics, it’s essential.

Second, at the very end of his trip, Obama brought together Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan through a phone call that, for all intents and purposes, settled the most outstanding of their immediate disagreements (an Israeli apology for and compensation over the deaths of Turkish citizens killed during the attack on the Mavi Marmara in 2010).

It’s not clear that Obama promised either of the two anything specific, but what he did do was remind Netanyahu and Erdoğan that the region is at a critical moment, and that the two countries have common interests that trump these kinds of disputes. Like a mediator, he made sure that they knew all of their interests—including that of the United States—required coordination, even if it didn’t include full agreement on all issues.

Third, Obama appears to have convinced the Israelis that the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank really is their only partner for peace, particularly as Hamas’s regional stature continues to rise. To this end, the Administration has managed to unblock $500 million in aid to the PA, which Congress had previously frozen, at the same time that Jerusalem has decided to resume transfer of tax revenues to the PA, also frozen after Mahmoud Abbas asked the United Nations General Assembly to grant the Palestinians non-observer member state status.

Finally, Obama has publicly discussed bringing the Arab states more directly into the peace process. This will provide political cover for the PA to make unpopular decisions about concessions during talks. But tying the Arab states to the negotiations further isolates Iran, and also gives them a stake in the outcome.

The conventional wisdom is that the Israelis and Palestinians aren’t interested at this point in resolving their conflict, and that the Arab Awakening, Syria, and Iran are forcing the White House to wait on events more than seek to manage them. But Obama’s trip to the region has demonstrated that this isn’t true.

Certainly there is a long way to go before Israelis and Palestinians make peace, before Saudis and Israelis overcome decades of hostility, or even before Israelis and Turks return to full normalized relations. But even still, it’s clear that Obama is preparing a network to support Washington’s leadership vis-à-vis Iran and Syria, and to better respond to the Arab Awakening.

He’s done all this quietly, by lowering expectations beforehand, and by convincing Israelis, Palestinians, Turks, and Arabs that they share common goals. This is the essence of persuasion. Obama’s ability to project American hard power in the region might be fading, but that’s not the case with American soft power.

Obama’s Successes in Israel

At Open Zion I argue that Barack Obama’s trip to Israel was very successful:

On Twitter, Blake Hounshell asked if President Barack Obama’s trip to Israel was a “huge” success or not. I think we first have to define what we mean by “success.” But by the definition that Obama himself set out, albeit vaguely, and the unforeseen consequences, I think it was, certainly, a “huge success.”

In fact, it was this very vagueness that underlined the success. By downplaying expectations of any dramatic new initiatives on any policy issue, Obama laid the groundwork for excitement whenever he did touch on these (whether Iran or the peace process). By pulling back from an active American role, he also helped Israelis feel in control of their foreign policy at a time when the country has been subject to intense demands from all corners about how to behave and what to do regarding Iran or the Palestinians.

He washed away some of the personal tension that existed between him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which in turn builds the necessary capital for coordinating with him on Iran and pressing him on the peace process.

Obama gave Israelis the impression that he does care about them, he is looking out for their security, and he does understand them. His speeches at the Jerusalem Convention Center and at Yad Vashem both invoked the Jewish past and connection to the Land of Israel, the insecurity that drives much Israeli behavior, and the rightness of their Zionism. To this end he also visited all the right sites in Israel, tying together the Jewish-Israeli experience over centuries.

In a country with such fractured political and ideological opinions, Obama could never make everybody happy. But there was enough there for most: for leftists he laid heavy emphasis on the immorality and injustice of the occupation. For the right he repeatedly committed himself to Israel’s security, implicitly noting that it’s not just about the balance of material forces but also about perceptions and history. (Of course, his comments regarding the former undermined some of the goodwill his comments for the latter might have generated.)

We cannot judge the success of the trip by looking at the Palestinian reaction simply because the trip wasn’t about them. There was a small detour—and that’s what it was—to visit President Mahmoud Abbas and then Bethlehem, and this gave the impression of American support for the Palestinian Authority. But Obama wasn’t out to reassure the Palestinians. Fair or not, Washington thinks that it’s Israel that needs to be warmed up for negotiations; the Palestinians will probably come along (perhaps with some necessary arm-twisting) because they aren’t in a position to do anything but. And they can’t be bought off with a few speeches and visits to sites of identity because the occupation will still be there once Obama leaves.

But in his Jerusalem speech Obama did humanize the Palestinians in a way they rarely have been in Israeli political discourse. This might not seem like much from Hebron, but it can make a difference among the Israeli public, which will be needed to pressure Bibi into making any progress in peace talks.

Unexpectedly, Obama also brokered a reconciliation between Bibi and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Not only did they speak by phone, but Bibi apologized to Erdoğan for the deaths of Turkish citizens killed during the Mavi Marmara affair. The repairing of that relationship is good for everybody, but it also enhances Obama’s position as facilitator of regional diplomacy. This is necessary as the American position in the Middle East changes in the wake of the Arab Awakening, and as things with Iran come to a head.

So yes, this was a successful visit in the short term. In the longer term it’s obviously too early to say: regional events can take an unanticipated turn with unforeseen consequences. The politics of the new Israeli government have yet to play out, and it’s not clear what that will mean for Israeli foreign policy. But for now, Obama can deservedly bask in the glow of his trip to Israel—at least until his return to the drama of Washington politics snaps him out of it.