The Nation: The Speech on Diplomacy That Obama Should Have Given Last Night

[Scuba]

http://www.thenation.com/article/181580/speech-diplomacy-obama-should-have-gave-last-night

The Speech on Diplomacy That Obama Should Have Given Last Night
Not taking military action isn’t the same thing as doing nothing.


Too often in the United States—most especially since 9/11—we equate “doing something” with “doing something military.” George W. Bush gave a traumatized, near-paralyzed US public two options: we either go to war, or we let ‘em get away with it. Faced with that choice, it was hardly surprising that 88 percent or so of people in this country chose war. But the reality is that when there are no military solutions—which is most of the time, for those who care to notice, including on September 12, 2001—the alternative is not nothing, but active non-military engagement. Diplomacy becomes even more important. President Obama has said it over and over again: there is no US military solution in Iraq or Syria. He’s right. And yet military actions—in coalitions, with local partners, counter-terrorism but not counter-insurgency—were pretty much all we heard in his speech last night.

Obama’s four-part strategy to “degrade and destroy” ISIS (which he persists in calling ISIL, referencing the Levant, the old French colonial term for Greater Syria or al-Shams) tilts strongly towards the military. First, airstrikes, in Syria as well as Iraq. Second, military support to forces fighting ISIS on the ground, including support to the “moderate” Syrian opposition who challenge ISIS. Third, counter-terrorism strategies to “cut off its funding, improve our intelligence, strengthen our defenses, counter its warped ideology and stem the flow of foreign fighters.” And fourth, the only one not solely or primarily military, humanitarian assistance. What’s missing is a real focus, a real explanation to people in this country and to people and governments in the Middle East and around the world, on just what a political solution to the ISIS crisis would really require and what kind of diplomacy will be needed to get there.

...

Second, instead of a Coalition of the Killing, President Obama should have announced a new broad coalition with a political and diplomatic, not military, mandate. It should aim to use diplomatic power and financial pressures, not military strikes, to undermine ISIS power. Such a coalition would be far broader and far less fragile than a military alliance. All the regional governments have their own limitations on military action. Turkey knows that supporting, let alone joining, US-led airstrikes or other attacks on ISIS in Iraq or Syria could threaten the lives of its forty-nine diplomats and their families now held by ISIS. US ally Saudi Arabia will have to be pushed hard to stop arming and financing ISIS and other extremist fighters, but its dependence on US arms and military protection gives Washington plenty of leverage if it chose to use it. Turkey could be pushed to stop allowing ISIS and other fighters to cross into Syria from Turkish territory. US allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others need to be pushed to stop financing and arming everyone and anyone in Syria who says they’re against Assad. (Those include the Al Qaeda franchise al-Nusra Front as well as the so-called “moderate” opposition fighters of the Free Syrian Army, who themselves beheaded six ISIS prisoners captured in August.)

...

Finally, an arms embargo on all sides should be on the long-term agenda. This obviously isn’t something that will happen right away. But discussion about why it’s necessary could begin tomorrow. The United States has no leverage and no legitimacy in pressing Russia and Iran to end their support for the Assad regime in Damascus as long as Washington and its regional allies continue to arm and train the wide range of anti-Assad rebels. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others, especially among the gulf states, have no reason to stop arming their various chosen factions as long as the United States ignores its own domestic requirements under the Leahy Law and the Arms Export Control Act to stop arms sales to known human rights violators in foreign militaries. A viable arms embargo will be on all sides or none. And once it’s on the agenda, it becomes a step towards another crucial goal, too often dismissed as impossible: a weapons of mass destruction–free Middle East, with no exceptions. Such a move would begin the process of inspecting and ultimately eliminating Israel’s powerful but unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, would confirm the non-military use of Iran’s nuclear power program and would end the propensity for WMD production in too many countries in the region. And it would be a fitting coda to a hard-fought and likely years-long diplomatic process.

An arms embargo. How quaint.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Isaac Asimov

[OilemFirchen]

2. And fairies will fly out of my ass.

A viable arms embargo will be on all sides or none.

No it won't. It will always be on the "none" side.

[frazzled]

3. They're pretty wrong on Turkey

Turkey's main interest in not joining an alliance to push back ISIS has to do with their long-standing opposition to their own Kurdish population, who they fear might obtain weapons or strength and renew their separatist ambitions.

Rather, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned on the state-run Anatolia news agency that weapons sent by Western countries to fight ISIS could end up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which Ankara considers a terrorist group.

“We have expressed our concerns,” Mr. Cavusoglu said. “It may not be possible to control where these weapons will go.”

Turkish officials raised concern about a host of issues surrounding the coalition, including the safety of 49 Turkish diplomats who have been taken hostage by ISIS, and whether the growing international effort to arm Kurdish fighters in Iraq against ISIS could embolden Kurdish militants in Turkey who have been seeking autonomy for the country’s largely Kurdish southeast. Turkish Kurds with the P.K.K. have fought with Kurdish pesh merga fighters in northern Iraq against ISIS. Turkey is also grappling with an influx of more than 800,000 Syrian refugees — the largest Syrian refugee population after Lebanon’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/world/europe/turkey-is-courted-by-us-to-help-fight-isis.html?_r=0

Look, the Turkish-Kurdish problem has been going on since the 1980s. There is no way they want to aid the Kurds across the border in Iraq, or risk that Turkish Kurds who have gone to fight with the peshmerga might come back with "ideas."

[Scuba]

4. Is the "they" to which you refer the Obama administration?

Based on your excerpts, sounds like the Turks would be pleased by an arms embargo to the region.

[frazzled]

5. No, the Nation's analysis of Turkey's reluctance to participate

The safety of its national hostages is only the tiniest part of why it doesn't want to participate. To leave out the entire Kurdish imbroglio is surely an act of intentional omission.

[viniketa]

6. US is arms leader

No one sells more arms and military-related goods and services in that part of the world than the US. The idea that our Corporate-sponsored Senate and Congress will agree to an embargo is a bit naive. That's not the same as saying you are not correct, only that it isn't about to happen. The Republicans will force the issue since their constituents are primarily hawks and the arms dealers.