EFTA02721203.pdf

To: jeeyacationggmail.com[[email protected]] From: Office of Terje Rod-Larsen Sent: Mon 5/21/2012 1:55:45 PM Subject: May 19 update 19 May, 2012 Article 1. NYT Talks With Iran: U.S. Sees Hopeful Signs Mark Landler Article 2_ The Washington Institute Prospects for Success in the Iran Nuclear Negotiations Patrick Clawson and Mehdi Khalaji Article 3. Foreign Policy How Obama Missed an Opportunity for M.E Peace Steven White, P.J. Dermer Article 4. The New Republic Obama's Cult of Complexity—and How It's Hurting Syria Leon Wieseltier Article 5. The American Spectator Elections on the Nile George H. Wittman Article 6. Foreign Affairs EFTA_R1_02205123 EFTA02721203  The Not-Quite-Alliance Between Saudi Arabia and Turkey Mel iha Benl i Altunisik Article I. NYT Heading Into Talks With Iran, U.S. Sees Hopeful Signs Mark Landler May 18, 2012 — American negotiators, heading into a crucial round of talks with Iran over its nuclear programnext week in Baghdad, are allowing themselves a rare emotion after more than a decade of fruitless haggling with Tehran: hope. With signs that Iran is under more pressure than it has been in years to make a deal, senior Obama administration officials said the United States and five other major powers were prepared to offer a package of inducements to obtain a verifiable agreement to suspend its efforts to enrich uranium closer to weapons grade. These gestures, the officials said, could include easing restrictions on things like airplane parts and technical assistance to Iran's energy industry, but not the sweeping sanctions on oil exports, which officials said would go into effect on schedule in July. The oil sanctions, which the Iranians are seeking desperately to avoid, are one of several factors that EFTA_R1_02205124 EFTA02721204 American officials believe may make Tehran more amenable to exploring a diplomatic solution. In addition, the recent decline in oil prices has magnified the pain of the existing sanctions on Iran; a new government coalition in Israel has strengthened the hand of its hawkish leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and Americans believe that recent blustery statements from Iranian officials are laying the groundwork for concessions by Tehran. None of this guarantees success. Several officials played down the prospect of a major breakthrough from the meeting on Wednesday, which will include Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, in addition to the United States. Mr. Netanyahu on Friday repeated his skepticism that there would be any progress. But American officials said that at a minimum, the Baghdad meeting should be a genuine test of Iran's willingness to do more than talk. "They're nervous enough to talk," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the negotiations. "Whether they're nervous enough to act, we don't know yet." Another senior official said, "We have a tail wind going into this." For President Obama, the stakes are huge. A successful meeting could prolong the diplomatic dance with Tehran, delaying any possible military confrontation over the nuclear program until after the presidential election. It could also keep a lid on oil prices, which fell again this week in part because of the decrease in tensions. Lower gasoline prices would EFTA_R1_02205125 EFTA02721205 aid the economic recovery in the United States, and Mr. Obama's electoral prospects. In a sign of the increased diplomatic efforts, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that its director general, Yukiya Amano, would travel to Tehran on Sunday to try to negotiate access to a military site where Iran is suspected of having conducted tests on nuclear-weapons triggers. It would be the first visit by the agency's head to Iran since 2009, and it could add to the momentum in Baghdad. "The Iranians are in the position of needing to pursue diplomacy, if anything, even more than they did before," said Dennis B. Ross, one of Mr. Obama's senior advisers on Iran until last year and now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It's not like they have any other good news right now." Moreover, Mr. Ross said, Iran's recent statements signal that its leaders are preparing their domestic audience for concessions. Iranian officials have declared that the West has effectively endorsed Iran's right to enrich uranium, a step they portrayed as a major strategic coup. American officials insist the United States has not done that and has been deliberately ambiguous about whether it would ever grant Iran the right to enrichment. Still, as Mr. Ross said, "if you're looking for a way to present a compromise, you want to present it as a victory." Like other experts, he added a cautionary note. After an initial meeting in Istanbul last month that served mainly to test if Iran was willing to talk seriously EFTA_R1_02205126 EFTA02721206 about its nuclear program, the United States and its partners must now get into the kinds of nitty-gritty issues that torpedoed previous negotiations with Iran. The major powers' initial goal is to halt the activity that most alarms Israel: the spinning of thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity, which is within striking distance of the level needed to fuel a nuclear weapon. That would buy time for negotiations over the ultimate fate of a program that Iran claims is for peaceful energy purposes, but that the United States and Israel fear is in pursuit of at least a nuclear weapons capability. In addition to halting enrichment, officials said, Iran must agree to ship out its stockpiles of 20 percent uranium and to cease operations at an enrichment facility buried in a mountainside near the holy city of Qum, which Israel says could soon be impregnable to an airstrike. If Iran agrees to those interim steps, officials said, the talks could shift from high-profile meetings once a month to more regular meetings, at working levels, where officials could delve into technical details, like how to ship out the uranium or monitor Iran's suspension of operations at the plant near Qum, known as Fordo. European Union and Iranian officials have already met in Geneva to prepare the agenda for the meeting in Baghdad. "You could really use the summer to have weekly, if not daily, meetings to get to the point where the U.S. could say, `We think there is a deal out there to avoid war,' " said R. Nicholas Burns, who led talks with Iran EFTA_R1_02205127 EFTA02721207 under President George W. Bush and is now a professor at Harvard. But, he added, the Obama administration "has also got to be willing to walk away from it." On Tuesday, the American ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, sought to reassure an Israeli audience that the United States not only was willing to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but had made preparations to do so. And Mr. Netanyahu's public position on the negotiations has remain unchanged, while his ability to order military action may actually be enhanced by his new, broader coalition, analysts said. In his comments on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu reiterated his demand that Iran cease all enrichment, even to 3.5 percent purity; ship out all stockpiles of enriched uranium; and dismantle, rather than simply switch off, the Fordo facility. "When this goal is achieved, I will be the first to applaud," he said during a visit to Prague. "Until then, count me among the skeptics." Analysts said it was hard to gauge what kinds of concessions from the Western nations, Russia and China would draw a positive response from Iran, beyond lifting the oil embargo. European officials have suggested that the European Union could suspend a ban on insuring oil tankers that has had a far swifter effect on Iran's sales elsewhere in the world than originally intended. The major powers, officials said, are also likely to offer a variation on an earlier proposal to enrich uranium removed from Iran and ship it back into the EFTA_R1_02205128 EFTA02721208 country for use in medical research. Article 2. The Washington Institute Prospects for Success in the Iran Nuclear Negotiations Patrick Clawson and Mehdi Khalaji May 18, 2012 -- While Tehran may be preparing the ground for an interim agreement on terms the West would accept, any deal-in-principle would have to be finalized, put into practice, and followed by fuller agreements. Both Tehran and Washington are downplaying expectations for the May 23 Baghdad negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany). Indeed, the prospects for eventual success are uncertain. If Iran is truly prepared to deal, and if the parties find appreciable overlap between what they are willing to concede, they may be able to forge an interim agreement, though the value and durability of such a deal may not be clear. TEHRAN MAY BE PREPARING IRANIANS FOR A DEAL To enable serious compromise, Iran must take two actions: prepare public opinion and include more- skilled diplomats in the negotiating team. Regarding the first item, Iranian officials consistently deny the EFTA_R1_02205129 EFTA02721209 impact of sanctions on both the nuclear program and economy. This fact suggests that if Tehran decides to make a concession, it will not want the move to be publicly perceived as a capitulation to economic pressure. Instead, the regime would need to present any nuclear accord as a victory for Iran. On May 9, an editorial in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's newspaper, Keyhan, asserted that, for the first time since 2003, the P5+1 had agreed to take action if Iran takes action: "This means that the West has prepared itself for giving up to Iran's demands...This is why the Istanbul talks were successful." The author concludes that May 23 will be an ordinary day for Iran, but one of the last chances for the P5+1 and Washington to reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic. On Thursday, another Keyhan editorial about the talks stated, "If in early days Iran took a step backward, today Iran has made dozens of steps forward...Iran welcomes agreement and success in the negotiations, but it does not believe that negotiation necessarily should lead to agreement at any price." Many other newspaper and web articles have argued along similar lines, trumpeting Iran's success in its principled stance of resistance to Western pressure. The regime tightly controls media coverage of the nuclear issue and sanctions, providing strict guidelines about what themes to use, so the triumphalist tone of recent articles should be seen as an indication that Tehran is preparing the public for a deal. To be sure, there are negative signs as well. As indicated above, the media coverage includes EFTA_R1_02205130 EFTA02721210 assertions that the West needs a deal more than Iran does -- for instance, the May 9 Keyhan editorial also stated, "The Obama administration is in a situation that continuation of the talks is much more important to him that anything else, even [closing of] the Fordow facilities or [shipping out] 20 percent enriched uranium...because Obama has no priority beyond succeeding in the presidential election. Therefore he has to first prevent the Zionists from getting mobilized against him...and second stabilize the world oil market." The author continues, "If Americans need these talks to be continued, why should Iran respond to their demands?...What is Iran's benefit in getting involved in talks?" Similarly, in his May 17 speech at Iran University of Science and Technology, chief nuclear negotiator Said Jalili criticized Western officials for remarks made after the Istanbul talks, saying they should be "more careful in their statements and not miscalculate because what is going to end is not the time for negotiation but the pressure on Iranian people." He continued, "Undoubtedly, more pressure on the Iranian nation would lead to more resistance." The second prerequisite for an agreement is that Iran field a negotiating team that is skilled at making a deal rather than resorting to the previous team's tactic of just saying no. On one hand, there are few if any signs that the former team, which was pushed out in 2005, has been assimilated into the current team. On the other hand, members of the former team have recently resurfaced after years out of the limelight, almost certainly at Khamenei's order. Hossein Mousavian and EFTA_R1_02205131 EFTA02721211 Hassan Rouhani have traveled to Europe to meet with officials behind the scenes, and Rouhani broke his public silence and spoke with the Tehran-based Mehr Nameh journal for its May issue. In that interview, he revealed that President Bush sent a message to Iran in April 2004 through International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei, offering to personally lead negotiations to resolve all outstanding differences with Iran. Yet according to Rouhani, "The regime [nezam, typically used to refer to the Supreme Leader] basically decided that we would not have negotiations with America." He also portrayed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as ignorant and naive about the nuclear issue, and implied that Iran had missed opportunities to resolve the nuclear crisis with Washington and its Western allies due to Khamenei's uncompromising attitude and Ahmadinejad's lack of skill and wisdom. Rouhani would never be allowed to make such remarks unless someone in authority approved. ZONE OF POSSIBLE AGREEMENT Various intriguing signs suggest there may a "zone of possible agreement" -- in which the least that one side will accept overlaps with the most the other side will offer -- enabling an interim deal. Whether such an agreement would be good for U.S. and Western interests is another question. The two sides have been dancing around a "freeze for freeze" arrangement for years, and the terms for such a deal have become clearer. 20 percent enrichment cap. Iran would agree to freeze uranium enrichment at 20 percent, a level EFTA_R1_02205132 EFTA02721212 that puts the regime closer to a breakout capability if it decided to quickly develop nuclear weapons. Some Iranian officials state that the government has all the 20 percent uranium it needs for the Tehran Research Reactor, and that additional production would be for future reactors or sale abroad. The P5+1 would ask Iran for three additional steps: (1) shipping the existing stockpile of 20 percent uranium abroad for fabrication into fuel plates for the research reactor, since such plates are very difficult to convert for use in a bomb; (2) suspending 20 percent enrichment at the underground Fordow facility, a measure aimed at reducing Israel's concern that it may have to attack soon or lose the ability to curb the nuclear program altogether; and (3) pledging to accept the IAEA Additional Protocol, which gives the agency enhanced inspection rights to verify Iranian compliance. The latter step could also require Iran to answer the IAEA's questions about past activities. At this stage, the P5+1 seem less likely to push on the issue of 3.5 percent enriched uranium -- either the stockpiles or ongoing enrichment -- although they will probably point out that this issue must be dealt with at some point. Presumably, Tehran will negotiate hard on each of these issues. Sanctions relief. The P5+1 would agree to freeze some of the most onerous sanctions on Iran. In particular, Tehran may demand relief from headline- grabbing sanctions such as the incoming EU oil embargo (scheduled to begin July 1), the U.S. and EU ban on transactions with the Central Bank, or some of the UN's high-profile restrictions. Yet action on these EFTA_R1_02205133 EFTA02721213 items is unlikely unless Iran does much more than seems probable so any such demands could be a deal breaker. Just as the West has offered Iran face-saving terms, so too must Tehran offer a compromise that does not make the West appear weak. Perhaps the P5+1 could offer benefits other than sanctions relief, as some U.S. officials have hinted, though it is difficult to see what other measures Iran would find sufficient. Another possibility is to convince Iran that it could extract significant benefits from less high- profile tweaking of the sanctions. For instance, while the main Iranian banks have been excluded from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the system used for nearly all global financial transfers, smaller private banks can still access it. If the EU permitted those banks to act as intermediaries for the larger state banks, then the SWIFT sanctions would have much less impact, becoming an inconvenience rather than a ban without forcing the EU to publicly climb down. Other examples include the very tough EU restrictions on property and indemnity (P&I) insurance and reinsurance, which are important for shipping. These restrictions have had much more impact on Iran's oil sales than the July 1 embargo will have. The EU could modify the P&I ban in ways that appreciably improve Iran's finances but have little effect on public opinion. In particular, the EU could postpone its May 3 ruling that ships cannot get P&I insurance or reinsurance in Europe if even one drop of the fuel they are using comes from Iran -- a requirement that could force most EFTA_R1_02205134 EFTA02721214 large refineries worldwide to stop buying Iranian oil. BAGHDAD AND BEYOND The most important measure of success for the Baghdad talks is whether they conclude with plans for accelerated, detailed follow-up discussions. If the next high-level meeting is another five weeks away, that would be a very bad sign, as would any failure to set up technical working groups. Reaching a full agreement will probably take dozens more meetings, and a leisurely pace would suggest that Iran is using the talks to stall while its nuclear program progresses. The first step toward compromise may be an agreement-in-principle on an interim deal. But that alone will not guarantee success -- much bargaining will be needed to turn it into a formal agreement. Given the Iranian regime's record of spotty implementation and quick suspension of past agreements, the United States (and, perhaps, Europe) will want clear evidence of commitment before permitting Tehran to reap many rewards. Moreover, any interim deal will ultimately fail unless it leads to further accords. The history of the Middle East suggests that nothing is as permanent as an interim deal. Indeed, the grave risk is that an interim agreement with Iran will become the de facto final deal, with nothing more achieved despite protracted negotiations. Once the P5+1 have accepted such an agreement, it will be difficult to explain why its terms are insufficient. Iran could gain much traction by arguing that so long as it observes the deal's terms, then there is no nuclear crisis, and therefore no basis EFTA_R1_02205135 EFTA02721215 for additional sanctions, much less military action. Yet any interim deal would cover only the most urgent issues, leaving Iran free to pursue many other problematic nuclear activities. To forestall this possibility, the P5+1 should ensure that any sanctions relief offered under an interim deal is temporary: for example, the West could agree that certain sanctions will be suspended for six months, then revert to their original level unless further agreements are reached. A related, equally grave risk is that once a diplomatic process is under way, diplomats often have difficulty recognizing when it has failed. All too often, the process trumps the results. Therefore, unless all parties feel the time pressure, the Baghdad negotiations and subsequent talks will become a sideshow to the main act: Iran's continued nuclear progress. Patrick Clawson is director of research at The Washington Institute. Mehdi Khalaji is a seniorfellow at the Institute. Article 3. Foreign Policy How Obama Missed an Opportunity for Middle East Peace Steven White, P.J. l)ermer "We werefond together, because of the sweep of the open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes EFTA_R1_02205136 EFTA02721216 in which we worked. The moralfreshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up in ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to befoughtfor. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: Yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of theformer world they knew." — T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom MAY 18, 2012 -- There aren't many reasons for optimism regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict these days. But amid the failed negotiations, diplomatic maneuverings, and occasional spasms of violence, one unsung initiative has been an unalloyed success: The mission of the U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This hodgepodge staff of military and civilian advisors, working together in the spirit of Lawrence's words, has trained more than 5,000 members of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF), rebuilt Palestinian security institutions, and fostered a renewed sense of relevance in the Palestinians' nascent moves toward statehood. The achievements of the USSC, which began operations in 2005 and commenced training Palestinian security forces in 2007, have formed the foundation of every claim of progress made by successive U.S. administrations in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The mission has been integral to the re-establishment of stability and security in the West Bank for Palestinians and Israelis alike -- militias are off the streets, crime is down, and basic EFTA_R1_02205137 EFTA02721217 order has largely returned. The mission has been lauded by such leaders as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. But it is perhaps the opinion of Palestinian citizens themselves that is most telling. A community leader in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, once a center of conflict, compared the period before 2007, when "the camp was controlled by militias and thugs who partially financed their regime through theft and extortion," and after new security forces' return, when "life changed for the better." The work of the team headed by Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, who was its second coordinator and guided the USSC from December 2005 to October 2010, continues to reap dividends to this day. The efforts of a professional, motivated, and well-trained Palestinian security establishment have allowed West Bank business enterprises to flourish and local economies to boom. These successes have facilitated Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's efforts to reconstruct government and local institutions. Perhaps the greatest mark of its success is that, even as the political impasse between Israel and the Palestinians widens, security coordination between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian security forces continues at levels unseen since before the Second Intifada, which raged from 2000 to 2004. This development was unimaginable just a few years ago. While the accomplishments of Dayton's team were EFTA_R1_02205138 EFTA02721218 recognized and celebrated by Europeans, Israelis, Palestinians, and our regional partners alike, its significance seems largely lost on those in Washington. President Barack Obama's Middle East team has particularly failed to grasp the importance of this effort: It has not only failed to exploit the progress for political gains, but has in fact scaled back the mission's key role as an interlocutor between the parties. It's a fact well understood, and at times lamented, by our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts. "The USSC bought critical time, time for the politicians," said former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipken-Shahak in a meeting with Dayton in 2009, "which, sadly, those on all sides have wasted." While not explicitly stated, the USSC was created by President George W. Bush's administration as part of the overarching peace process. Given Israel's neuralgia with the concept of armed and organized Palestinian groups in the wake of the Second Intifada and the Palestinians' anxiety about lacking a security patron, the organization was meant to give the Israeli political and defense establishment confidence that an individual was in place who would do nothing to jeopardize Israel's security, while simultaneously giving the Palestinians someone they could point to as their "big brother" within the whole of the process. The USSC was thus never just about "training and equipping" the Palestinian security forces, nor achieving institution-building goals. It was, first and foremost, a U.S. confidence-building measure between both parties. EFTA_R1_02205139 EFTA02721219 Why was this concept lost? The course taken by former special envoy George Mitchell and his team, which began its mission with the unrealistic belief that negotiations were the one and only key to success, was emblematic of the Obama administration's entire approach. Members of his team explicitly told us that focusing on anything other than negotiations -- such as security or other bottom-up economic and institution building efforts -- would be seen as an admission that their efforts were lackluster by comparison. Their actions were even worse than their rhetoric. Mitchell's team consistently excluded and bypassed the USSC, then Washington's most trusted agent, including on issues that clearly dovetailed with his security purview. Mitchell and his team failed to understand that the top- down negotiations process had to be augmented by a bottom-up institution building process. Beyond being saddled by the president's own misguided pronouncement on Israeli settlements, Mitchell also failed to supervise the activities of the senior members of his team, whose views were both out of tune with the realities of the ground and the perspectives of key Israeli and Palestinian players. None seemingly understood the importance of Israel's defense establishment as a gateway to energizing their own politicians to exploit the security progress, nor valued the critical relationships the USSC possessed upon their arrival. Since Mitchell left his post, however, he seems to have recognized the error of his ways -- too late. At a EFTA_R1_02205140 EFTA02721220 January 2012 event sponsored by The Atlantic, he laid out a plan that joined a top-down process with a bottom-up institution building effort -- identical to the approach advocated by the USSC, and ignored by his office when he had the power to actually implement them. (When Dennis Ross re-inherited his de facto role as the president's lead man on peace-process issues after Mitchell's departure, he also ignored his own proclaimed lesson that there should not be a disconnect between those sitting at the negotiating table and events on the ground.) Obama's Middle East team to date has sought to diminish Dayton's role rather than build on the USSC's successes in the field. By 2010, unnamed administration officials were holding forth that he was "very difficult to deal with" and "excessively deferential toward Israeli security assessments." Based on our own experiences working closely with the general from 2005 to 2010, these views are deeply misinformed. These negative assessments were primarily based on Dayton's increasing calls for more concerted action to reach a diplomatic breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. As his tenure progressed, he came to realize that security gains alone -- no matter how emotionally satisfying for his team -- would not resolve the conflict. Dayton was not overly deferential to the Israelis. However, he realized early on that without their buy- in on every initiative, nothing could progress. Had the Israelis not come to trust and respect the general, we would not be writing this article -- there would be no EFTA_R1_02205141 EFTA02721221 successes to report. Dayton departed the USSC in October 2010 after five years at the helm of the organization without so much as an exit interview with President Obama, although he had met three times with Bush in the Oval Office to review progress of the mission. (After numerous requests, he did eventually meet with Secretary Clinton and then-National Security Advisor James Jones.) He was also not afforded a final congressional testimony -- which, according to a senior congressional staffer who wishes to remain anonymous, was blocked not by Congress but by the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs. Finally, he was not asked for either an after-action report or an assessment of the five years he worked to advance successive U.S. administrations' peace- process efforts in the region. These political schisms within the U.S. government are not lost on Israelis and Palestinians. They privately lament that those in the administration charged with dealing with Israeli-Palestinian issues appear to have little real interest in understanding what goes on outside of Washington or how changing developments on the ground can fit into the greater scheme of resolving one of the world's most intractable problems. Officials in Washington concerned with Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking should see the USSC's hard-won victories as an integral part of the peace process that should be built on, not ignored or discarded. *** EFTA_R1_02205142 EFTA02721222 When Dayton took over the security mission in 2005 from Gen. Kip Ward, who initiated the effort and successfully led it through the complicated political hazards surrounding Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, progress of any sort was far from assured. Palestinian security institutions had to be built from scratch while its territory remained under Israeli occupation, and Palestinian political actors were embroiled in simmering civil conflicts. All this had to be done at first without dedicated operational funding -- prior to Hamas's takeover of Gaza in 2007, no U.S. funds were allocated to the mission. The USSC also answered to the more risk- averse and top-down State Department, rather than the Defense Department. Furthermore, falling under the State Department's control meant that the USSC was constrained by not one, but two, local "chief of mission" authorities in the field -- the Consulate General in Jerusalem and the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, whose own relations were fraught with petty intrigues and turf battles. The Dayton mission was further hobbled by the diplomatic missions' restrictive local travel and contact policies. The Pentagon was not the address to seek relief from these restrictions, no matter how valid the need. During the Bush administration, "relief' would come from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when Dayton could make the case that amid the intensely polarized atmosphere of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as that which existed between the local U.S. missions, the USSC stood out as the one EFTA_R1_02205143 EFTA02721223 American entity that was not perceived as taking either side. One internal weakness was the USSC's staff, which was comprised mostly of individuals on six-month to one-year assignments who had never been to the Middle East. Further complicating the mix was the multinational composition of the team, which featured major contributions from Britain and Canada. Because of the highly charged political environment and emotional nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the USSC's every move was under a microscope -- from the Israelis, Palestinians, U.S. government bureaucracies, Congress, international actors, and political advocacy groups alike. Success was far from a given; a long line of failures by distinguished international envoys was the historical norm. To complicate matters further, Israeli-Palestinian dynamics were as unpredictable and combustible as ever upon Dayton's arrival in late 2005. Abbas's Palestinian Authority was in disarray following the end of the brutal Second Intifada, the chaotic security situation after the death of Yasir Arafat, and the unsure political and security wake of Israel's historic disengagement from Gaza. Meanwhile, the security relationship between the IDF and the PA security services was nonexistent. It wasn't hard to see why: Israeli citizens were being killed by suicide bombers, while Palestinian militants were operating openly and frequently launching rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns; meanwhile, IDF EFTA_R1_02205144 EFTA02721224 units were conducting an intensive campaign of daily incursions and raids throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of Israel's historic Gaza disengagement, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians appeared to be serious about forging a constructive relationship, as many in Jerusalem and Washington had hoped. PASF veterans appeared more concerned with maintaining access to power and personal wealth from the traditionally corrupt avenues established by Arafat. Israelis, on the other hand, remained intent on achieving improved security largely through unilateral means as they had always done. The result was that little to no trust -- the primary component for real cooperation -- existed between the two sides in any sphere. *** Things did not begin well for Dayton's tenure. Hamas won a majority in parliamentary elections held in January 2006, within the first month of his term. Due to Washington's direction to bypass Hamas, which assumed control of the Ministry of the Interior in a coalition government, the USSC could only work with Abbas's inner circle and security elements directly subordinate to his office. As a result, the USSC partnered with Abbas's Presidential Guard on Gaza's southern border at Rafah and the major Gaza-Israel commercial border crossing at Karni, while ignoring the Palestinian Civil Police and its closest natural counterpart and largest body, the Palestinian Authority's National Security Force (NSF), which EFTA_R1_02205145 EFTA02721225 were under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. Bedeviled by these political constraints and restricted to doing the majority of its business from within the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem -- a situation akin to operating within Iraq's Green Zone -- the USSC dutifully tinkered away from a safe distance. But this distance ensured we were largely blind to the internal intrigues within the PA, as well as its brewing conflict with llamas in Gaza, which was directly relevant to the mission's initial efforts. As such, the rapid fall of Gaza in the summer of 2007 not only came as a surprise, but also put the mission at risk. Paradoxically, however, the loss of Gaza provided the first significant opportunity for the USSC's endeavors. It brought Israeli and Palestinian strategic interests in synch for the first time since the Oslo Accords -- Israel, the United States, and the PA all wanted to roll back Hamas at any cost. Since any security cooperation with Hamas remained off the table, its takeover of Gaza caused the USSC to redirect its efforts toward the West Bank, which remained in the "friendly" hands of Israel and Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Jolted by the events in Gaza and without a clear idea of how to proceed, the Bush administration had no choice but to allow the USSC significantly more room to maneuver. Dayton, moreover, was now more seasoned and savvy on the ways of all the parties involved -- including the United States -- and assumed a role more befitting a military commander in the EFTA_R1_02205146 EFTA02721226 field. And, with the appointment of the Western- friendly technocrat Salam Fayyad to the post of prime minister, the way was now cleared for cooperation with all West Bank security forces, not just the Presidential Guard. In short order, the USSC team saw a unique opportunity in a Jordanian training facility previously used to train Iraq's security forces. In 2007, the team commenced negotiations between Israel, Jordan, and the PA to repurpose and retool the structure to begin to train nascent Palestinian forces. Jordan now became another critical regional player contributing to the effort. But gaining the trust of both Israelis and Palestinians was even more important than rebuilding physical infrastructure. Dayton needed to convince both sides they had vested interests in his mission's success. To do so, he needed to challenge the deeply engrained beliefs of both parties. He had to convince Palestinians they were not being trained to substitute for Israeli security efforts nor facilitate a more streamlined Israeli occupation. At the same time, he had to convince the Israelis that his mission enhanced, not undermined, their security interests. Senior Israeli policy and security officials made it no secret from the outset they were more than skeptical of the USSC concept. Acting accordingly in the early days, they resisted even the most minor initiatives, such as allowing the entry of non-lethal equipment into Gaza or the West Bank or approving alternate entry points into the territories for USSC team members to execute EFTA_R1_02205147 EFTA02721227 their tasks. The first step Dayton took to build this trust was having his team live in the region -- a major break with the tradition of previous U.S. envoys. Dayton and his team did not parachute in for a few days, make the proverbial rounds of office calls, and return home filled with "first-hand observations." Instead, the British component of the USSC, led by a serving brigadier general, actually took up residence in the Palestinian capital Ramallah, while the Americans and Canadians lived in Jerusalem. The continuous presence of a small but dedicated team that worked directly with all sides allowed the USSC to understand the realities on the ground and the complicated human terrain -- crucial for getting anything done in the Middle East. Second, Dayton and key members of his staff created and continually nurtured private and informal relationships with Israeli, Palestinian, regional and international interlocutors, particularly the invaluable EU mission to the Palestinian civil police. We cultivated genuine partnerships in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, spending significant face time with all levels of their respective hierarchies. This is something few in Washington officialdom will ever countenance, for fear of diminishing their standing both in their own minds and among peers. The cornerstone of the USSC's success, on any given day, resided in these hard-won personal relationships. Still, the mission was not without its critics. In a 2010 report, the International Crisis Group noted EFTA_R1_02205148 EFTA02721228 erroneously, "With the improvement of Palestinian capacity ... the security reform project has gone on autopilot." Nothing could have been further from the truth. Throughout the entirety of Dayton's tenure, the general and his team spent countless hours in consultations and negotiations, maneuvering through byzantine bureaucracies -- the U.S. bureaucracy included -- and against long-standing local biases. Major issues were resolved via informal get-togethers rather than formal meetings, notably with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, at his home, or with other key Israeli commanders in relaxed settings and far from the view of eager diplomatic note takers. It was often at these meetings where resolutions to longstanding issues -- such as the opening of the a new West Bank crossing site, elimination of longstanding checkpoints, and facilitation of the Palestinian Authority's 2008 Bethlehem Investment Conference -- were hashed out. Establishing these relationships was fraught with complexity. Palestinian politicians, as well as many within the State Department, overly concerned themselves with the USSC's close relationship with Israel's security apparatus -- behaving as though Israel's presence in the West Bank was solely something to decry rather than something to be mitigated through intense work with both sides. As former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer pointed out in a meeting with the authors, "The USSC was started to get someone in the door who could work both sides of the street; the training aspect was EFTA_R1_02205149 EFTA02721229 secondary." The USSC argued that it had to deal in reality -- not the situation everyone wished existed. As such, it worked with senior IDF planners and commanders in the field to gain their confidence and ultimately convince them to take risks in support of their new Palestinian security partners. Dayton's team took advantage of multiple opportunities to "midwife" the renewal of substantive trust between the IDF and PASF -- not just superficial top-level collaboration, but genuine security coordination on the ground. This burgeoning trust paid off in initial Palestinian security campaigns to get militias off the streets in the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin. These nascent campaigns were marked examples of bold Palestinian security initiatives and the IDF's newfound willingness to support the test-case enterprises. The campaign, as one unclassified IDF document noted, helped to "create positive momentum, particularly among the Palestinian leadership and population ... despite inherent security risks [toward Israeli citizens] this may create." In the West Bank, success begot success: These initiatives created confidence among Israeli security officials that Palestinians could be trusted to maintain law and order, and led to the implementation of similar programs in other Palestinian cities. The reality was of real benefit to the civilian populations on both sides, allowing for a reduction of major fixed checkpoints in the West Bank from 42 in 2007 to 14 in 2009. If the IDF had not been a full partner in this EFTA_R1_02205150 EFTA02721230 effort, none of the USSC's labors would have worked. The third element of Dayton's strategy was allowing for decentralization within the team and freedom of maneuver in the daily operation of his organization. The complicated environment required staff to be creative and flexible, and to be in a position to make things happen in short order. USSC staff was given latitude to act quickly on opportunities, so long as all were informed. This organizational method, however, was counterintuitive to our very hierarchic and cautious counterparts at the State Department, who preferred to make a decision only when every option had been thoroughly examined or exhausted, and only upon final written permission from Washington. British and Canadian contributions to the USSC would become seminal to the mission's success, as their members were allowed to perform functions that the U.S. diplomatic corps prohibited its own military personnel from conducting, such as unaccompanied travel into the West Bank. Authority within the USSC was not commensurate with rank, but rather background, experience, and utility. As a mere reserve major in a sea of lieutenant colonels and colonels, Steven White served as the USSC's senior Middle East advisor. Based on his previous background in Israel and his longstanding relationships with IDF officers, he was granted the trust and confidence to liaise directly with senior Israeli officials and address their concerns. Dayton intuitively realized early on that Israelis prized and EFTA_R1_02205151 EFTA02721231 respected experience and judgment over the trappings of rank, and altered his organizational hierarchy accordingly. Fourth, Dayton deftly lobbied and coordinated actions with international partners, primarily the British and Canadians, for both financial and personnel contributions. He allowed the British and Canadians on the team a wide degree of autonomy. As such, trust was reciprocated by international capitals, which in turn fostered crucially needed funding from a variety of allied sources to fill Washington's initial funding deficit. Ironically, as a result, the USSC eventually had more Canadian members than Americans. Lastly, Dayton embarked on an intensive lobbying campaign at home and abroad. His first major accomplishment was attaining direct congressional funding for his mission following the fall of Gaza, almost two years into his tenure. The Bush administration reprogrammed State Department funds from USAID and other State Department bureaus to meet Palestinian security needs early on, and Congress, not wanting the West Bank to follow Gaza, unlocked its coffers. This strategy ultimately allowed the team to effectively provide security assistance to the Palestinian Authority in a manner that built up its own confidence, while at the same time creating an atmosphere that obliged Israel to understand and appreciate the tremendous strides being made on the other side of their security barrier. While the USSC played a critical role in facilitating this EFTA_R1_02205152 EFTA02721232 accomplishment, the critical point remains -- the lion's share of the credit for the renewal of Israeli- Palestinian security coordination belongs to the parties themselves. *** To be sure, using the term "success" to describe the USSC's efforts is a fraught business. There are many Israelis and Palestinians who are still convinced that the effort will meet the disastrous fate that similar initiatives did in 2000, when highly touted post-Oslo security cooperation efforts unraveled amid the bloody Second Intifada. Many Palestinians observe that, although they fulfilled their part of