[R-G] Two, three, many 'grand bargains'?

[Anthony Fenton]

Nov 4, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JK04Ak01.html
Two, three, many 'grand bargains'?
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - As the United States waded ever deeper into the  
Indochinese quagmire in the early 1960s, Argentine revolutionary Che  
Guevara called for "two, three, many Vietnams" to bog down the  
superpower in unwinnable Third World conflicts which would drain its  
treasury and overstretch its military.

While today's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not quite as costly -  
at least as a percentage of the gross domestic product - as then,  
Guevara's vision, echoed nearly 40 years later by Osama bin Laden, of  
an increasingly stressed hyperpower which now confronts its worst  
financial crisis since the Great Depression, must weigh heavily on  
whichever candidate moves into the White House on January 20.

Indeed, even as both presidential candidates John McCain and Barack  
Obama talk about the urgency of sending thousands more troops to  
Afghanistan to cope with the growing Taliban threat - potentially  
magnified manifold by the ongoing insurgency across the border in the  
tribal territories of nuclear-armed Pakistan - the transition set to  
begin next Tuesday will offer the president-elect a critical window to  
contemplate possible exit strategies not only in southwest Asia, but  
also westward to the Mediterranean.

A series of interlocking "grand bargains" backed by the relevant  
regional players as well as major global powers - aimed at pacifying  
Afghanistan; integrating Iran into a new regional security structure;  
promoting reconciliation in Iraq; and launching a credible process to  
negotiate a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world -  
must offer a very tempting, if extremely challenging, prospect to any  
new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Restoring stability to the Greater Middle East and reducing its on-the- 
ground troop presence would not only greatly reduce the US$15 billion  
dollars a month Washington spends on military operations in Iraq and  
Afghanistan, the stress on the US military, and the unprecedented  
hostility among the world's more than one billion Muslims.

It would also permit the new president to focus on tackling the global  
financial crisis and the deteriorating economic situation at home,  
including key issues such as healthcare and the declining middle  
class, that the public believes, as made clear by this election  
campaign, have been too long neglected.

While no senior policy maker has yet used the phrase "grand bargain",  
the notion that the problems faced by Washington in the Greater Middle  
East - and thus, implicitly, the solutions, too - are deeply  
interconnected. General David Petraeus, who on Friday formally took  
over the reins of US Central Command, which covers the entire region  
and Central Asia and who is certain to have a major say in future  
strategy, clearly understands this as well as anyone.

"Where Central Command can help is in looking at this overall  
challenge as a region, and helping regionally by looking not just at  
Afghanistan, but also of course Pakistan, at the Stans [former Soviet  
republics], Iran and even some of the other countries in the greater  
region that have been long involved, such as the kingdom of Saudi  
Arabia and some of the Gulf states, and even leaders in Lebanon," he  
told the New York Times in a September interview.

In one indication of his thinking, Petraeus reportedly requested  
permission last week to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,  
the subject of a three-year-old diplomatic boycott by the Bush  
administration, only to be turned down by the White House.

The notion of a "grand bargain" has been most commonly raised in  
recent years in connection with Iran in which, according to its most  
persistent proponents, former Bush Gulf experts Flynt and Hillary Mann  
Leverett, Washington would provide security guarantees to the Islamic  
Republic, normalize bilateral ties, and develop a cooperative approach  
to regional security - including Iraq and Afghanistan - in exchange  
for a halt to Tehran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, support for  
Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups Washington considers to be  
terrorists.

But a "grand bargain" was also recently raised in connection with  
Afghanistan and Pakistan by two prominent experts, Pakistani  
journalist Ahmed Rashid, who has reportedly consulted with Petraeus,  
and New York University Professor Barnett Rubin, in the influential  
Foreign Affairs journal in which they called for a two-pronged strategy.

The US and its NATO allies, they argued, should support efforts -  
which already appear to be underway - by the governments of both  
Afghanistan and Pakistan to reconcile with predominantly Pashtun  
Taliban insurgents on both sides of the border on the condition that  
they break all ties to al-Qaeda and other international terrorist  
groups.

At the same time, Washington should pursue a "high-level diplomatic  
initiative designed to build genuine consensus on the goal of  
achieving Afghan stability by addressing the legitimate sources of  
Pakistan's insecurity", especially vis-a-vis India, which, along with  
China, Russia, and Iran, would be brought into the negotiations to  
provide the necessary assurances.

The latter concept of a regional initiative backed by the great powers  
is not so different from the "new diplomatic offensive" proposed two  
years ago by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) co-chaired by  
former Secretary of State James Baker, which was designed to stretch  
the withdrawal of US combat troops over a 15-month period.

The ISG stressed the importance of directly engaging both Syria and  
Iran, as well as key Sunni-led Arab allies, in a regional framework,  
backed by the United Nations, the European Union, and other extra- 
regional powers, that would address the security needs of all of  
Iraq's neighbors and dissuade them from fueling sectarian conflict  
within Iraq. It also called for Washington to condition its future  
support for the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government on its efforts to  
reconcile with the country's Sunni community.

Strongly objecting to any withdrawal timetable, Bush largely ignored  
these recommendations and instead "surged" tens of thousands more  
troops into Iraq to curb sectarian violence. Two years later, with the  
hoped-for national reconciliation still unrealized and the Iraqi  
government, increasingly influenced by Iran, refusing to sign a  
bilateral accord that would permit US troops to stay at least until  
2011, a new president may wish to take the ISG report's back off the  
shelf.

The ISG's "new diplomatic offensive" also linked the stabilization of  
Iraq and the securing of US interests in the Middle East to a  
comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement for which a great-power  
framework, the quartet, already exists. While Bush has sought, albeit  
half-heartedly, to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian accord - now  
considered out of his reach due to pending Israeli elections in  
February - over the past year, he has done nothing to encourage more- 
promising Turkish-mediated talks between Israel and Syria.

In the last month, however, senior Israeli officials have called on  
their Arab neighbors to revive the 2002 Arab League Peace Initiative -  
originally a Saudi proposal to offer Israel normalized relations with  
all league members in exchange for its return to the 1967 borders and  
the establishment of a Palestinian state that would share Jerusalem -  
as the way forward on all fronts at the same time.

Like the other three, this fourth possible "grand bargain" will depend  
critically on strong US backing, as well as that of the other great  
powers.

And, as with the other three, much will hinge on the positions of  
Saudi Arabia - which not only launched the Arab Initiative, but also  
hosted talks last month between senior Taliban associates and the  
Afghan government and enjoys considerable influence in Pakistan - and  
Iran, whose geopolitical gains since the Iraq invasion have greatly  
enhanced its ability to play the spoiler from Afghanistan to the  
eastern Mediterranean. The outcome of Israel's elections will also  
weigh heavily in the balance.

Nonetheless, if the Arab Initiative gains sufficient momentum to  
induce Tehran's allies, especially Syria and Hamas, to join the  
bandwagon, Iran, according to some analysts, will likely acquiesce,  
particularly if its security interests are addressed in the other  
possible bargains that the new president may be considering after next  
Tuesday's elections.

Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the neo- 
conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/ 
.

(Inter Press Service)