Analysis from Israel

One of the most disturbing of many disturbing developments in the Middle East recently is the growing fear among America’s traditional Arab allies that Washington’s support can no longer be relied on.

Whether this fear has any valid basis is irrelevant. Last month, for instance, Reuters reported on two different conspiracy theories that are gaining currency among the Gulf states’ leadership: that America is plotting with the Muslim Brotherhood to replace existing Arab monarchies, and that it wants to create a Shi’ite-led government in Bahrain as a step toward rapprochement with Iran. Needless to say, both are nonsensical. But even if one deems the premise delusional, the consequences are very real – and highly detrimental to American interests.

America’s Arab allies have always relied on a U.S. defense umbrella for protection against outside threats, from Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to Iran today. In exchange, they keep oil markets relatively stable (Saudi Arabia, for instance, boosted oil production to compensate for the shortfall caused by sanctions on Iran), cooperate closely on counterterrorism activity against anti-American groups like al Qaeda (even as they remain largely responsible for financing the spread of the extremist Islamic ideology that fosters such terrorism), avoid destabilizing military activity, and occasionally support other American policy goals (for instance, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti publicly denounced the attacks on America’s consulate in Benghazi and embassy in Cairo as un-Islamic).

But the moment they think this American defense umbrella can’t be relied on, their willingness to support American interests will vanish. At that point, they will either begin cozying up to powerful neighbors like Iran, engage in military adventurism of their own, or start funding anti-American terrorist groups rather than fighting them.

As former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Dore Gold noted recently, Qatar was a bellwether in this regard: According to senior Gulf state officials, the U.S. government’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s finding that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 made Qatar doubt America’s resolve to prevent Iran’s nuclearization, so it began moving closer to Tehran. By 2010, it was openly planning joint military exercises with Iran, even while continuing to host America’s main airbase in the region. Indeed, the shift was so marked that other Gulf States began excluding it from meetings called to discuss concerns about Iran. Only thanks to Syria’s civil war did this trend reverse: As a Sunni state, Qatar couldn’t risk appearing to countenance the Iranian-backed Assad regime’s slaughter of the Sunni-led opposition.

Over the past two years, however, there have been worrying signs that other Arab countries are also beginning to disregard American concerns. Iraq, for instance, defied repeated U.S. demands to bar Iran from flying weapons to Syria through its airspace, even though America is its main arms supplier. Yet seen through the prism of fear, it could hardly do otherwise: Bordered by Iran and its powerful army, lacking even an air force of its own, it can’t risk antagonizing Tehran if it isn’t certain America will be there to protect it.

Perhaps the most noteworthy example was Saudi Arabia’s decision to send troops into Bahrain last year without even warning Washington, thereby destroying America’s hopes for a negotiated solution between Bahrain’s Sunni government and the Shi’ite-led opposition. Saudi Arabia is not only one of America’s closest Arab allies, it has traditionally been averse to employing military force outside its borders. Yet without confidence that Washington would keep the Iranian wolf from its door, Riyadh felt it had no choice. “We don’t want Iran 14 miles off our coast, and that’s not going to happen,” a senior Saudi official bluntly told The Washington Post. Having lived with Iranian-backed militias on two of their borders for years, Israelis can sympathize.

So far, these are minor annoyances rather than major strategic setbacks. But if this trend continues, the costs are liable to escalate.

For all these states, as cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010 made clear, the make-or-break issue is Iran’s nuclear program. Saudi Arabia urged the U.S. to attack Iran and “cut off the head of the snake.” Abu Dhabi’s crown prince warned, “[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is Hitler.” King Hamad of Bahrain said Iran’s nuclear program “must be stopped,” because “the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.” Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri declared that the Iraq war “was unnecessary,” but “Iran is necessary.” A senior Jordanian official said that military action against Iran would be “catastrophic,” but he “nonetheless thought preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons would pay enough dividends to make it worth the risks.”

All these countries would be delighted if sanctions and diplomacy did the trick instead. But they want Iran’s nuclear program stopped, whatever it takes – and they want to be convinced that America will see to it.

Clearly, America can’t sacrifice its own strategic interests just to reassure its Arab allies on this point. For instance, many of these allies believe the Assad regime’s downfall would deal Iran a major blow, so they want Washington to at least let them provide the Syrian opposition with heavier weapons (as their main arms supplier, America has an effective veto), and perhaps even impose a no-fly zone. But if Washington believes America’s own strategic interests argue against these moves, it obviously can’t acquiesce simply to convince its allies that it’s serious about stopping Iran.

Yet since a bipartisan consensus in Washington holds that Iran’s nuclear program must indeed be stopped, finding some way to convey the necessary reassurance without undermining American interests shouldn’t be impossible. And doing so is vital.

Many Americans are understandably weary of American involvement in the Middle East, but the region is still too important to be ignored. Reassuring America’s Arab allies should therefore be a priority for whoever wins next month’s presidential election.

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Why Israel Needs a Better Political Class

Note: This piece is a response to an essay by Haviv Rettig Gur, which can be found here

Israel’s current political crisis exemplifies the maxim that hard cases make bad law. This case is desperate. Six months after the coronavirus erupted and nine months after the fiscal year began, Israel still lacks both a functioning contact-tracing system and an approved 2020 budget, mainly because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more worried about politics than the domestic problems that Israel now confronts. The government’s failure to perform these basic tasks obviously invites the conclusion that civil servants’ far-reaching powers must not only be preserved, but perhaps even increased.

This would be the wrong conclusion. Bureaucrats, especially when they have great power, are vulnerable to the same ills as elected politicians. But unlike politicians, they are completely unaccountable to the public.

That doesn’t mean Haviv Rettig Gur is wrong to deem them indispensable. They provide institutional memory, flesh out elected officials’ policies, and supply information the politicians may not know and options they may not have considered. Yet the current crisis shows in several ways why they neither can nor should substitute for elected politicians.

First, bureaucrats are no less prone to poor judgment than politicians. As evidence, consider Siegal Sadetzki, part of the Netanyahu-led triumvirate that ran Israel’s initial response to the coronavirus. It’s unsurprising that Gur never mentioned Sadetzki even as he lauded the triumvirate’s third member, former Health Ministry Director General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov; she and her fellow Health Ministry staffers are a major reason why Israel still lacks a functional test-and-trace system.

Sadetzki, an epidemiologist, was the ministry’s director of public-health services and the only member of the triumvirate with professional expertise in epidemics (Bar Siman-Tov is an economist). As such, her input was crucial. Yet she adamantly opposed expanding virus testing, even publicly asserting that “Too much testing will increase complacence.” She opposed letting organizations outside the public-health system do lab work for coronavirus tests, even though the system was overwhelmed. She opposed sewage monitoring to track the spread of the virus. And on, and on.

Moreover, even after acknowledging that test-and-trace was necessary, ministry bureaucrats insisted for months that their ministry do the tracing despite its glaringly inadequate manpower. Only in August was the job finally given to the army, which does have the requisite personnel. And the system still isn’t fully operational.

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