EFTA02689609.pdf

The Shimon Post L 16 May, 2011 Article 1. The Weekly Standard The Illusion of Peace with Syria Elliott Abrams Article 2. The Daily Star A democratic Arab world would welcome peace with Israel Hamid Alkifaey Article 3. The Daily Beast The Awkward Exit of Mideast Envoy George Mitchell Daniel Stone Article 4. The Washington Post Amid the Arab Spring, a U.S.-Saudi split Nawaf Obaid Article 5. Newsweek Dr. K's Rx for China Niall Ferguson Article 6. Hurriyet Daily News aria as Turkey's domestic issue Yusuf Kanli Article 7. STRATFOR The Geopolitics of Israel: Biblical and Modern EFTA_R1_02029150 EFTA02689609 Article 1. The Weekly Standard The Illusion of Peace with Syria Elliott Abrams May 23, 2011 -- The news from Syria grows grimmer by the day— more peaceful protesters killed, ten thousand arrested in the past week, army units shelling residential neighborhoods. But the Obama administration's response has not grown grimmer or louder. As recently as May 6, Secretary of State Clinton was still talking about a "reform agenda" in Syria, as if Bashar al-Assad were a slightly misguided bureaucrat rather than the murderer of roughly 1,000 unarmed demonstrators. As for the president, though the White House has issued a couple of statements in his name, he has yet to say one word on camera about the bloodletting in Syria. This is not a small matter, for a tough statement attacking the regime's repression and giving the demonstrators moral support would immediately circulate over the Internet. American sanctions against Syria, meanwhile, have not named Assad, and there has been no call for him to step down. Why is the administration appearing to stick with Assad and refusing to call for his ouster? A key reason may be the hope that an Israeli- Syrian peace deal can be arranged. From the day it came to office, the Obama administration clearly wanted to win an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. There has been no progress during its two years in office, mostly because the White House insisted on a 100 percent construction freeze in the West Bank settlements and Jerusalem as a precondition for negotiations. This was politically impossible in Israel, and also meant that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas could not come to the table lest he appear to be asking less from Israel than the Americans. EFTA_R1_02029151 EFTA02689610  3 With negotiations frozen, the Palestinians turned to unilateral measures: seeking a United Nations vote admitting the State of Palestine to membership and getting dozens of countries to recognize a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, their delegitimization campaign against Israel continued apace, especially in Europe, where calls for boycotts and sanctions spread. On the pro-Israel side there was also consideration of unilateral measures—steps to head off the Palestinians diplomatically (several of which I described and supported in the April 11 Weekly Standard). Some forlorn hope may still have existed inside the administration that a compromise on construction could bring the Palestinians back to the table with the government of Israel—until the agreement between Hamas and Fatah was signed on April 27. This agreement, unless and until it collapses, makes Israeli concessions or new flexibility in the West Bank impossible and puts paid to the entire "peace process." It brings Hamas into the Palestinian Authority government, ending a period of several years when Palestinian Security Forces have cooperated with the Israel Defense Forces against terrorism and against Hamas in particular. It will also bring Hamas—next year and for the first time—into the PLO, the body charged with negotiating peace with Israel. Even Yasser Arafat resisted that development when he headed the PLO, and it seems obvious that Israel cannot negotiate peace with an anti-Semitic terrorist group bent on its destruction. So where can the White House turn if it wants some kind of peace process in the Middle East? Syria. After all, in his first term as prime minister, back in 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu did authorize indirect negotiations with Syria. And the IDF—and especially Ehud Barak, a former head of the IDF, Israel's defense minister, and a close adviser to Netanyahu—has long favored such a deal. The IDF theory was that if Syria made peace, so would Lebanon, and then Israel would be at EFTA_R1_02029152 EFTA02689611  4 peace with all four neighboring Arab states. And it can be argued now that Assad may see negotiations with Israel as a way to climb back from the pariah status he is earning, making him at this juncture truly open to a new peace process. Such thinking, whether in Jerusalem or the White House, is foolish and even grotesque. There is no possibility that Assad would negotiate seriously and that an agreement could be attained. He is now clinging desperately to power, and his only true allies are Iran and Hezbollah. Yet Israel's (and, one hopes, our own) key precondition to any agreement would necessarily be a clean break in those relationships: an end to the Syrian alliance with Hezbollah and Iran. Otherwise Israel would be giving the Golan, in effect, to Iran—a suicidal act. No Israeli government would do it, which suggests that negotiations with Assad would have no purpose. Assad may indeed be open to commencing a negotiation as a means to escape international isolation, but that's all the more reason not to give it to him. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 2008 talks with Syria (via Turkey) allowed Syria to escape the partial isolation the United States had imposed on it in that decade, with zero gain for Israel. This is not an experiment worth repeating, for the Assad regime is today even more despicable than it was three years ago. To react to the murders now taking place all over Syria by embracing the Assad regime would be morally indefensible. Whether Assad can be overthrown soon by the people of Syria is a fair question to ask. Will the army stay with him, or will Sunni units rebel? Will the Sunni business elites turn against him? How long can the regime survive? We do not yet know the answers. But surely we must avoid any step that could help Assad, rehabilitate his regime, or undermine the courageous struggle of peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Syria. The peace agreements that Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan were real achievements, but there will be no such agreements with the EFTA_R1_02029153 EFTA02689612  5 Palestinians or with Syria in the foreseeable future. The Palestinians have taken themselves out of the game for now. We cannot turn from them to the Syrians while Assad's troops are using howitzers and sniper rifles against his people. This is the time not for diplomatic engagement with Assad, but for diplomacy aimed at quarantining his regime and helping bring it down. The White House should dismiss any remaining dreams of a "peace process" with Syria to substitute for the Palestinian version and face facts: There will be no peace with the butcher who rules Syria today. Elliott Abrams, seniorfellowfor Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. EFTA_R1_02029154 EFTA02689613 Ankle 2. The Daily Star A democratic Arab world would welcome peace with Israel Hamid Alkifaey One could reasonably argue that the golden opportunity for peace in the Middle East was blown away when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995. He was the only Israeli leader capable of making peace with the Palestinians, and was about to do so had it not been for the bullets of Yigal Amir, the right-wing religious zealot who believed in the "winner takes all" principle. One could also claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its global ramifications are responsible for agitating religious extremism in the Muslim world as a whole, and among Palestinians in particular. Prior to 1987, there was hardly any Islamic factor in Palestinian resistance. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups were established after the 1987 intifada. From this we deduce that extremism on the Israeli side led to the same on the Palestinian side, and consequently in other Muslim countries, which manifests in popular opposition to traditional and despotic regimes. The Arab world is currently going through a social and political revolution that has so far claimed two "entrenched" regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. At least three other regimes in the region are fighting for their lives, and are not expected to survive. There will soon be different styles of government in Libya, Yemen and Syria. This much is certain. Will there be a different policy toward Israel? Certainly. But this will take time to take shape, since there are more pressing national EFTA_R1_02029155 EFTA02689614  7 priorities, such as political and economic reforms. Israel has long branded the Arab world as tribal and undemocratic, in order to brand itself the only democracy in the Middle East. Well, soon enough it won't be. Many of its neighbors will soon join the democratic world as demands for democracy grow. Democracy will mean more development, prosperity and people's power. It means more popular participation in decision making and awareness of the possibilities of the nation and what it can and cannot do. It may not mean more hostility toward Israel if the latter knows how to deal with it. But there will be tension if Israel continues to follow extreme policies, which it will under the current leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinians must achieve their right to establish their own state on their land. This right has been recognized by almost everyone except a minority of extremists in Israel, led by Netanyahu. Free and democratic Arab countries won't shrink from supporting this Palestinian right under any circumstances. Muslims will not give up on East Jerusalem, either. Arab regimes have been weak in the past. Democracy will strengthen them, but also add reason to Arab governance. Most Arabs have accepted Israel's right to exist, and accepted U.N. resolutions 242 and 338, but Israeli intransigence is not helping them formulate a unified position. Democratic Egypt won't be a threat to Israel as the Egyptian military, which will continue to be highly influential in Egypt's politics in the foreseeable future, will not risk another war with Israel. Egyptians under a democratic regime will be seeking better living standards, better laws to govern the country and more rights as citizens. They won't be pressing their government to fight Israel; on the contrary, they want a stable economy where things will be better for future generations. But Israel may aggravate the situation by electing extremists and following extreme policies. This will strengthen the hands of the hawks in the Arab world. Moderate Israel under EFTA_R1_02029156 EFTA02689615  8 reasonable and realistic leaders should have nothing to fear from Egypt, with which it has an enduring peace treaty. The situation with Syria may not be exactly the same, however, especially when the two countries are still officially in a state of war. The regime of Bashar Assad, and his father before him, would have never started a war with Israel unilaterally. It also suited them not to have a peace treaty. Any new Syrian leader is not likely (for a considerable period of time) to initiate a move toward a peace agreement with Israel as this will weaken his position domestically. Nor will he launch a war, however, since such a war will not result in victory. A democratic regime in Syria, or any other Arab country for that matter, will need a good 10 years to build democratic institutions and stabilize a modern market economy needed in any democracy. So, war won't be on the agenda in the near future. Prosperity increases the public's stake in a stable economy, and this will make people want to compromise to make their country more prosperous and stable. However, everything will depend on how prepared the free world is to help new democracies in the Middle East survive and prosper. Small Islamic groups, organized and armed with religious zeal, could hijack power from the moderates. This would lead to a disaster for the whole region. Therefore, it is imperative for the free world, Israel included, not to leave matters to chance. A proactive stance is needed to nurture democracy and help moderate forces organize themselves in order to govern the region Hamid Alkifaey is a writer andjournalist. He was thefirst government spokesman in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and isfounder-leader of the Movementfor Democratic Society. Currently he is researching democratization at the University of Exeter in the U.K. EFTA_R1_02029157 EFTA02689616 Article 3. The Daily Beast The Awkward Exit of Mideast Envoy George Mitchell Daniel Stone May 13, 2011 -- Two days after Barack Obama's inauguration, George Mitchell was named special envoy for Middle East peace. With the new president standing beside Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden took the podium and extolled Mitchell's reputation and experience having brokered peace in Northern Ireland, calling him an "outstanding public servant" with "incredible capacity." In the press, Mitchell was praised as the right man for the job at the right time. On Friday, though, that capacity had reached its limit, and Mitchell told his bosses in the West Wing that he'd had enough. His reasons, he said, were personal—the kind of nebulous rationale that leaves ample room for interpretation. Unmentioned were the months of frustration that Mitchell had built up as direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians became more difficult and the peace process further off. The timing of Mitchell's departure couldn't be more awkward. Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan's King Abdullah next week, as well as deliver a major speech on Middle East policy. But the resignation didn't come as a surprise to those who worked closest with Mitchell. A State Department official described to Newsweek a man increasingly annoyed by both parties' constant moving of the goal posts and the constraints of the administration's unshakeable political instinct to support Israel. EFTA_R1_02029158 EFTA02689617  10 The strain was noticeable in the Middle East. In a recent interview with Newsweek, one senior Israeli official said Mitchell often would say one thing about the direction the U.S. was taking with the two sides, only to be contradicted by Dennis Ross, Clinton's special adviser to the region. The official, who did not want to be quoted by name, said it seemed as if Mitchell had abdicated his role completely in recent months. Indeed, Mitchell's frequent visits to Israel and the West Bank slowed to a trickle; his last visit to the region was in December. When he was there, officials on both sides of the conflict had voiced bewilderment at Mitchell's hands-off approach to the complex negotiating process. With a small staff in Israel, he would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah to meet with senior advisers to the leaders of both sides and then leave after just a few days. In an interview with Newsweek last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas openly accused Mitchell of not doing his job. "Every visit by Mitchell, we talked to him and gave him some ideas," he said. "At the end we discovered that he didn't convey any of these ideas to the Israelis. What does it mean?" A politically attuned man who was once Senate Majority Leader, Mitchell was aware of the complaints about him. His usual comeback was to point to his success in Northern Ireland, which earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For hundreds of days, he liked to say, he was considered a failure, until the final day, when he actually got it done. Mitchell's resignation letter set off a small panic inside the West Wing earlier in the week. Senior advisers, as well as Obama himself, could sense the increasing difficulty of the job: Administration officials had been unable to convince Israel to halve new settlements in the West Bank, alienating Palestinians, and Israelis were irked in early May when Abbas allied with Hamas, a group that refuses to EFTA_R1_02029159 EFTA02689618 denounce violence against Israel. But the symbolism of Mitchell leaving several days before Obama's biggest week of outreach to the region projected a vacuum of confidence that anything hopeful, however remote, was on the horizon. "He wouldn't be leaving at this important hour if he knew there was going to be a significant change in the administration's attitude toward the peace process," said Middle East analyst Gregory Orfalea, who formerly taught at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. "He's leaving because it's status quo." Mitchell will be replaced—in the interim by his deputy, David Hale— and another official will take a crack at the quandary. But despite new momentum from Netanyahu's visit next week and Obama's speech Thursday, Mitchell's departure could signal stagnant talks for the next several years. According to Fawaz Gerges, director of the London School of Economics' Middle East Center, "the reality is that, with Mitchell leaving, Barack Obama basically lost the ideological battle [over how to confront the peace process]. By now he'll have to wait for the second term before you can get another concerted effort." Daniel Stone is Newsweek's White House correspondent. He also covers national energy and environmental policy. EFTA_R1_02029160 EFTA02689619 Ankle 4. The Washington Post Amid the Arab Spring, a U.S.-Saudi split Nawaf Obaid May 16 - RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA -- A tectonic shift has occurred in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Despite significant pressure from the Obama administration to remain on the sidelines, Saudi leaders sent troops into Manama in March to defend Bahrain's monarchy and quell the unrest that has shaken that country since February. For more than 60 years, Saudi Arabia has been bound by an unwritten bargain: oil for security. Riyadh has often protested but ultimately acquiesced to what it saw as misguided U.S. policies. But American missteps in the region since Sept. 11, an ill-conceived response to the Arab protest movements and an unconscionable refusal to hold Israel accountable for its illegal settlement building have brought this arrangement to an end. As the Saudis recalibrate the partnership, Riyadh intends to pursue a much more assertive foreign policy, at times conflicting with American interests. The backdrop for this change are the rise of Iranian meddling in the region and the counterproductive policies that the United States has pursued here since Sept. 11. The most significant blunder may have been the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in enormous loss of life and provided Iran an opening to expand its sphere of influence. For years, Iran's leadership has aimed to foment discord while furthering its geopolitical ambitions. Tehran has long funded Hamas and Hezbollah; recently, its scope of attempted interference has broadened to include the affairs of Arab states from Yemen to Morocco. This month the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi, harshly criticized Riyadh over its intervention in Bahrain, claiming this act would spark massive domestic uprisings. EFTA_R1_02029161 EFTA02689620  13 Such remarks are based more on wishful thinking than fact, but Iran's efforts to destabilize its neighbors are tireless. As Riyadh fights a cold war with Tehran, Washington has shown itself in recent months to be an unwilling and unreliable partner against this threat. The emerging political reality is a Saudi-led Arab world facing off against the aggression of Iran and its non-state proxies. Saudi Arabia will not allow the political unrest in the region to destabilize the Arab monarchies — the Gulf states, Jordan and Morocco. In Yemen, the Saudis are insisting on an orderly transition of power and a dignified exit for President Ali Abdullah Saleh (a courtesy that was not extended to Hosni Mubarak, despite the former Egyptian president's many years as a strong U.S. ally). To facilitate this handover, Riyadh is leading a diplomatic effort under the auspices of the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council. In Iraq, the Saudi government will continue to pursue a hard-line stance against the Maliki government, which it regards as little more than an Iranian puppet. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia will act to check the growth of Hezbollah and to ensure that this Iranian proxy does not dominate the country's political life. Regarding the widespread upheaval in Syria, the Saudis will work to ensure that any potential transition to a post-Assad era is as peaceful and as free of Iranian meddling as possible. Regarding Israel, Riyadh is adamant that a just settlement, based on King Abdullah's proposed peace plan, be implemented. This includes a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. The United States has lost all credibility on this issue; after casting the sole vote in the U.N. Security Council against censuring Israel for its illegal settlement building, it can no longer act as an objective mediator. This act was a watershed in U.S.- Saudi relations, guaranteeing that Saudi leaders will not push for further compromise from the Palestinians, despite American pressure. Saudi Arabia remains strong and stable, lending muscle to its invigorated foreign policy. Spiritually, the kingdom plays a unique EFTA_R1_02029162 EFTA02689621  14 role for the world's 1.2 billion Muslims — more than 1 billion of whom are Sunni — as the birthplace of Islam and home of the two holiest cities. Politically, its leaders enjoy broad domestic support, and a growing nationalism has knitted the historically tribal country more closely together. This is largely why widespread protests, much anticipated by Western media in March, never materialized. As the world's sole energy superpower and the de facto central banker of the global energy markets, Riyadh is the economic powerhouse of the Middle East, representing 25 percent of the combined gross domestic product of the Arab world. The kingdom has amassed more than $550 billion in foreign reserves and is spending more than $150 billion to improve infrastructure, public education, social services and health care. To counter the threats posed by Iran and transnational terrorist networks, the Saudi leadership is authorizing more than $100 billion of additional military spending to modernize ground forces, upgrade naval capabilities and more. The kingdom is doubling its number of high-quality combat aircraft and adding 60,000 security personnel to the Interior Ministry forces. Plans are underway to create a "Special Forces Command," based on the U.S. model, to unify the kingdom's various special forces if needed for rapid deployment abroad. Saudi Arabia has the will and the means to meet its expanded global responsibilities. In some issues, such as counterterrorism and efforts to fight money laundering, the Saudis will continue to be a strong U.S. partner. In areas in which Saudi national security or strategic interests are at stake, the kingdom will pursue its own agenda. With Iran working tirelessly to dominate the region, the Muslim Brotherhood rising in Egypt and unrest on nearly every border, there is simply too much at stake for the kingdom to rely on a security policy written in Washington, which has backfired more often than not and spread instability. The special relationship EFTA_R1_02029163 EFTA02689622  15 may never be the same, but from this transformation a more stable and secure Middle East can be born. The writer is a seniorfellow at the King Faisal Centerfor Research & Islamic Studies. EFTA_R1_02029164 EFTA02689623  I Ankle 5. Newsweek Dr. K's Rx for China Niall Ferguson May 15, 2011 -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks the Chinese government is "scared" of the Arab Spring. "They're worried," she told Jeffrey Goldberg in the latest Atlantic, "and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it." These are words—intemperate, undiplomatic, and very likely counterproductive—that you cannot imagine being uttered by her predecessor Henry Kissinger. It is now 40 years since Kissinger went on his secret mission to China, to pave the way for President Richard Nixon's historic visit the following year. Since then he has visited the country more than 50 times. And if there is one thing he has learned, it is this: the real fool's errand is to lean on the Chinese. Much has changed in the world since Kissinger's first trip to China. (In 1971, who would have dared to predict that America's public enemy No. 1 would be a Saudi-born Islamic fundamentalist skulking in a walled compound in Pakistan?) But at least two things in American foreign policy remain consistent: the relationship with mainland China, revived by Kissinger after more than 20 years in the deep freeze, and Kissinger himself, consulted formally or informally by every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. On China, Kissinger's new book, is a reminder of why our leaders still want to pick his brains. Eighty-eight years old this month, he remains without equal as a strategic thinker. The opening to China is a story Kissinger has told before: how he and Nixon had discerned that country could become a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union; how he secretly flew to China after feigning illness in Pakistan; how he and Premier Zhou Enlai hammered out the diplomatic basis for EFTA_R1_02029165 EFTA02689624  17 Nixon's official visit (the Shanghai Communiqué). The result was, as he puts it, "a quasi alliance," which, though initially intended to contain the Soviet Union, ended up outliving the Cold War. In this telling, however, Kissinger is able to take advantage of recent research that illuminates the Chinese side of the story. The American opening to China was also a Chinese opening to America, actuated above all by Mao Zedong's fear of encirclement. "Think about this," Mao told his doctor in 1969. "We have the Soviet Union to the north and the west, India to the south, and Japan to the east. If all our enemies were to unite, attacking us from the north, south, east, and west, what do you think we should do?" The medic had no idea. "Think again," said Mao. "Beyond Japan is the United States. Didn't our ancestors counsel negotiating with faraway countries while fighting with those that are near?" It was to explore the American option that Mao recalled four Army marshals from exile. Skirmishes were already underway between Soviet and Chinese forces on the Ussuri River. In October 1970 Mao ordered China's top leadership to evacuate Beijing and put the People's Liberation Army on "first- degree combat readiness." The stakes for China were high indeed— higher than for the United States. As Kissinger shows, it was far from unusual for Mao to refer to "our ancestors' counsel." Despite his lifelong commitment to Marxism-Leninism, Mao was also steeped in the classics of Chinese civilization, as were his close advisers. "We can consult the example of Zhuge Liang's strategic guiding principle," Marshal Ye Jian-ying suggested, "when the three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu confronted each other: `Ally with Wu in the east to oppose Wei in the north.' " The allusion, Kissinger explains, is to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a 14th-century epic novel set in the so-called Warring States period (475-221 B.C.). Nor was this the only occasion when China's communist leaders looked to the distant past for inspiration. Of equal importance to EFTA_R1_02029166 EFTA02689625  18 them, Kissinger argues, was The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which dates from the even earlier Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.). "The victorious army/Is victorious first/And seeks battle later": axioms like this one encouraged Chinese strategists to think of international relations like the board game Weiqi (known in the West as Go), a "game of surrounding pieces." Mao shared with China's prerevolutionary leaders an assumption that China is not like other countries. With a population that amounts to a fifth of humanity, it is Zhongguo: the Middle Kingdom or, perhaps more accurately, the "Central Country." At times it could even seem like tian xia: "all under heaven." The best foreign policy for such an empire was to "let barbarians fight barbarians." If that failed, then the strongest of the barbarians should be embraced and civilized (as happened to the Manchus). "Domineering and overwhelming ... ruthless and aloof, poet and warrior, prophet and scourge"—Mao's true hero was not Lenin but the tyrannical, book-burning "first emperor," Qin Shi Huang, who united China in 221 B.C. In a similar way, Kissinger shows, the current generation of Chinese leaders have drawn inspiration from the teachings of Kong Fu Zi (known in the West as Confucius). Their goal, he argues, is not world domination but da tong: "great harmony." This goes to the heart of the matter. In 1971, when Kissinger first went to China, the U.S. economy was roughly five times that of the People's Republic. Forty years later, as a result of the industrial revolution unleashed by Mao's successor Deng Xiao- ping, it is conceivable that China could overtake America within a decade. This is a feat the Soviet Union never came close to achieving. Moreover, China is now the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury notes, which form an important part of its vast $3 trillion of international reserves. How China will use its newfound economic power may be the most important question of our time. Few EFTA_R1_02029167 EFTA02689626  19 Americans are better placed to answer that question than Kissinger, who has dealt with four generations of Chinese leaders. The most profound insights of On China are psychological. They concern the fundamental cultural differences between a Chinese elite who can look back more than two millennia for inspiration and an American elite whose historical frame of reference is little more than two centuries old. This became most obvious in the wake of June 1989, when Americans recoiled from the use of military force to end the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations. To Kissinger's eyes, it was doubly naive to retaliate to this crackdown with sanctions: "Western concepts of human rights and individual liberties may not be directly translatable ... to a civilization for millennia ordered around different concepts. Nor can the traditional Chinese fear of political chaos be dismissed as an anachronistic irrelevancy needing only `correction' by Western enlightenment." As China's first Anglophone leader, Jiang Zemin, explained to Kissinger in 1991: "We never submit to pressure ... It is a philosophical principle." The United States and China went to war in Korea because of another cultural gap. It came as a surprise to the Americans when Mao ordered Chinese intervention because the military odds looked so unfavorable. But, argues Kissinger, his "motivating force was less to inflict a decisive military first blow than to change the psychological balance, not so much to defeat the enemy as to alter his calculus of risks." Mao was a master of the ancient Empty City Stratagem, which seeks to conceal weakness with a show of confidence, even aggression. To Westerners, his insistence that he did not fear a nuclear attack seemed unhinged or, at best, callous ("We may lose more than 300 million people. So what? War is war. The years will pass, and we'll get to work producing more babies than ever before"). But this was classical Chinese bravado, or "offensive deterrence." "Chinese negotiators," observes Kissinger EFTA_R1_02029168 EFTA02689627  20 in a passage that should be inwardly digested not just by American diplomats but also by American businessmen before they land in Beijing, "use diplomacy to weave together political, military, and psychological elements into an overall strategic design." American diplomacy, by contrast, "generally prefers ...c to be `flexible'; it feels an obligation to break deadlocks with new proposals— unintentionally inviting new deadlocks to elicit new proposals." We could learn a thing or two from the Chinese, Kissinger implies, particularly Sun Tzu's concept of shi, meaning the "potential energy" of the overall strategic landscape. Our tendency is to have an agenda of 10 different points, each one to be dealt with separately. They have one big game plan. We are always in a hurry for closure, anxiously watching the minutes tick away. The Chinese value patience; as Mao explained to Kissinger, they measure time in millennia. Such fundamental cultural differences may give rise to conflict with China in the future, Kissinger warns: "When the Chinese view of preemption encounters the Western concept of deterrence, a vicious circle can result: acts conceived as defensive in China may be treated as aggressive by the outside world; deterrent moves by the West may be interpreted in China as encirclement. The United States and China wrestled with this dilemma repeatedly during the Cold War; to some extent they have not yet found a way to transcend it." Could the United States and the People's Republic come to blows again? The possibility cannot be excluded. As Kissinger reminds us, war was the result when Germany rose to challenge Britain economically and geopolitically 100 years ago. Moreover, the key factor that brought America and China together in the 1970s—the common Soviet enemy the Chinese called "the polar bear"—has vanished from the scene. Old, intractable differences persist over Taiwan and North Korea. What remains is "Chimerica," a less-than- EFTA_R1_02029169 EFTA02689628  21 happy marriage of economic convenience in which one partner does all the saving and the other does all the spending. In Kissinger's own words, China's rise could "make international relations bipolar again," ushering in a new cold (or possibly even hot) war. Nationalist writers like Liu Mingfu, author of China Dream, urge China to switch from "peaceful development" to "military rise" and look forward to the "duel of the century" with the United States. There are those in Washington, too—apparently including, for the moment, the Obama administration—who would relish a more confrontational relationship. Yet Kissinger remains hopeful that cooler heads will prevail in Beijing: thinkers like Zheng Bijian, who urges China to "transcend the traditional ways for great powers to emerge" and "not [to] follow the path of Germany leading up to World War I." Rather than attempting to "organize Asia on the basis of containing China or creating a bloc of democratic states for an ideological crusade," the United States would do better, Kissinger suggests, to work with China to build a new "Pacific Community." Four decades ago, Richard Nixon grasped sooner than most the huge potential of China. "Well," he mused, "you can just stop and think of what could happen if anybody with a decent system of government got control of that mainland. Good God ... There'd be no power in the world that could even—I mean, you put 800 million Chinese to work under a decent system ... and they will be the leaders of the world." That prophecy is being fulfilled in our time. The fact that until now China's rise has been a boon to the United States rather than a bane owes much to the work of Henry Kissinger. With this book he has given his successors an indispensable guide to continuing the Sino-American "coevolution" he began. Ferguson is writing a biography of Henry Kissinger. EFTA_R1_02029170 EFTA02689629  11 Ankle 6. Hurriyet Daily News Syria as Turkey's domestic issue Yusuf Kanli May 15, 2011 -- Syria is no Libya for many reasons; not just because it is a country right on the Turkish border or, like Turkey, it has a Kurdish population and an explosion there may ignite an explosion on this side of the border as well. Like a broken watch that shows correct time twice a day, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well occasionally makes some correct analysis. Last week, while comparing the uprising in Libya against the Moammar Gadhafi regime and the growing unrest in the Syrian street against the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad, the prime minister correctly said Libya and Syria were two totally different issues for Turkey. Erdogan explained while Turkey was very much concerned with what's happening in Libya and have been undertaking every possible effort to contribute to a quick end to the tumult and restoration of peace and order in Libya, Syria was very much like a domestic incident for Turkey. As part of its neo-Ottoman drive to enhance its influence in the Middle Eastern territory of the former Ottoman Empire the ruling Justice and development Party, or AKP, government of Turkey has long waived visa requirement in travel between Turkey and Syria. The aim behind that move was to plant the seeds of a future European Union-like Middle Eastern union led by Turkey but the first tangible result was not a marked increase in commercial, business or tourist interactions, but a batch of 250 refugees running from the fire on the Syrian street. EFTA_R1_02029171 EFTA02689630  23 If the problem continues and escalates further in the Syrian street it is probable that the prefabricated facility in the Hatay province constructed to provide temporary lodging to pilgrims during the Hajj season will not suffice in providing a shelter to Syrian refugees who thanks to the no-visa regime in travel between Turkey and Syria may freely escape to Turkey from the trouble in their own street and thus carry the problem to the Turkish street. For now the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, terrorists are abiding with an unilateral truce, which is claimed to have been negotiated with the government by Abdullah Ocalan, the chieftain of the gang serving an enforced life term on the Imrali island prison, which according to claims will last until June 15, three days after the June 12 parliamentary elections. Indeed, excluding some rehearsal for a possible mass civilian disobedience campaign after the elections and some exceptional terrorist acts, it might be said that there is nothing extraordinary in Turkey's southeast bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran, where there are sizeable Kurdish populations. The "success" of the unrest in Syrian streets in uprooting the government might mean added trouble for Turkey, which has been battling with separatist terrorism for the past 25 years. Turkey remaining silent or supportive of the Assad regime crushing the pressure for a regime change and reform calls of the Syrian street, on the other hand, would seriously imperil the regional role aspired by the AKP governance of Turkey. Indeed, while the AKP government in Ankara joined the calls of the U.S.-led coalition of the willing that time is up for Moammar Gadhafi in Libya and for peace and safety of his own people Gadhafi must step down, as regards to Syria Ankara, as well as the Western alliance, has been restraining their calls with a shy request from Assad to accelerate reforms. EFTA_R1_02029172 EFTA02689631  24 While Ankara may answer anti-Turkish demonstrations in Libya by closing down the Turkish embassy in Tripoli, the first ever such action by the diplomatic service throughout its modern history, anti- Turkish demonstrations in Damascus can be really costly for Turkey now and in the future. While the personal friendly relations between Assad and his counterpart in Turkey, Erdogan, might provide Turkey a golden opportunity to help Syria sail out of the current tumultuous situation. Of course at a time when Erdogan himself is after converting Turkey into his sultanate of fear under the aegis of advanced democracy it might be absurd to expect him to advise Assad of a democratic way out of the mess in Syria. Yet, as much as Turkey needs to see restoration of peace, security and stability in Syria for domestic security reasons as well as for its regional role, Syria and President Assad need Turkey and Erdogan to walk the extra mile in reforms advised by them, as the real-politic of the day compels him to do so if he wants to sail out of this problem in one piece. If, however, despite Turkey's democracy and reform preaches, the massacres continue in the Syrian street not only the prestige of Erdogan in the Arab street will be seriously impaired but sooner or later the fire in the Arab street will have a reflection on the Turkish streets. EFTA_R1_02029173 EFTA02689632 Article 7. STRATFOR The Geopolitics of Israel: Biblical and Modern The founding principle of geopolitics is that place — geography — plays a significant role in determining how nations will behave. If that theory is true, then there ought to be a deep continuity in a nation's foreign policy. Israel is a laboratory for this theory, since it has existed in three different manifestations in roughly the same place, twice in antiquity and once in modernity. If geopolitics is correct, then Israeli foreign policy, independent of policymakers, technology or the identity of neighbors, ought to have important common features. This is, therefore, a discussion of common principles in Israeli foreign policy over nearly 3,000 years. For convenience, we will use the term "Israel" to connote all of the Hebrew and Jewish entities that have existed in the Levant since the invasion of the region as chronicled in the Book of Joshua. As always, geopolitics requires a consideration of three dimensions: the internal geopolitics of Israel, the interaction of Israel and the immediate neighbors who share borders with it, and Israel's interaction with what we will call great powers, beyond Israel's borderlands. Israel has manifested itself three times in history. The first manifestation began with the invasion led by Joshua and lasted through its division into two kingdoms, the Babylonian conquest of the Kingdom of Judah and the deportation to Babylon early in the sixth century B.C. The second manifestation began when Israel was recreated in 540 B.C. by the Persians, who had defeated the Babylonians. The nature of this second manifestation changed in the EFTA_R1_02029174 EFTA02689633  26 fourth century B.C., when Greece overran the Persian Empire and Israel, and again in the first century B.C., when the Romans conquered the region. The second manifestation saw Israel as a small actor within the framework of larger imperial powers, a situation that lasted until the destruction of the Jewish vassal state by the Romans. Israel's third manifestation began in 1948, following (as in the other cases) an ingathering oft least some of the Jews who had been dispersed after conquests. Israel's founding takes place in the context of the decline and fall of the British Empire and must, at least in part, be understood as part of British imperial history. During its first 50 years, Israel plays a pivotal role in the confrontation of the United States and the Soviet Union and, in some senses, is hostage to the dynamics of these two countries. In other words, like the first two manifestations of Israel, the third finds Israel continually struggling among independence, internal tension and imperial ambition. Israeli Geography and Borderlands At its height, under King David, Israel extended from the Sinai to the Euphrates, encompassing Damascus. It occupied some, but relatively little, of the coastal region, an area beginning at what today is Haifa and running south to Jaffa, just north of today's Tel Aviv. The coastal area to the north was held by Phoenicia, the area to the south by Philistines. It is essential to understand that Israel's size and shape shifted over time. For example, Judah under the Hasmoneans did not include the Negev but did include the Golan. The general locale of Israel is fixed. Its precise borders have never been. Thus, it is perhaps better to begin with what never was part of Israel. Israel never included the Sinai Peninsula. Along the coast, it never stretched much farther north than the Litani River in today's Lebanon. Apart from David's extreme extension (and fairly tenuous control) to EFTA_R1_02029175 EFTA02689634  27 the north, Israel's territory never stretched as far as Damascus, although it frequently held the Golan Heights. Israel extended many times to both sides of the Jordan but never deep into the Jordanian Desert. It never extended southeast into the Arabian Peninsula. Israel consists generally of three parts. First, it always has had the northern hill region, stretching from the foothills of Mount Hermon south to Jerusalem. Second, it always contains some of the coastal plain from today's Tel Aviv north to Haifa. Third, it occupies area between Jerusalem and the Jordan River — today's West Bank. At times, it controls all or part of the Negev, including the coastal region between the Sinai to the Tel Aviv area. It may be larger than this at various times in history, and sometimes smaller, but it normally holds all or part of these three regions. Israel is well-buffered in three directions. The Sinai Desert protects it against the Egyptians. In general, the Sinai has held little attraction for the Egyptians. The difficulty of deploying forces in the eastern Sinai poses severe logistical problems for them, particularly during a prolonged presence. Unless Egypt can rapidly move through the Sinai north i