Aaron David Miller: Obama must be tough and reassuring; 2 state solution is on his watch

Earlier this week I spoke with Aaron David Miller, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center who served as a Mideast advisor to six secretaries of state. He is currently working on a new book titled "Can America Have Another Great President?"  I asked him about the state of the peace process and how he thinks the Obama administration has done so far.

Here is our exchange:

In a Washington Post op-ed you co-wrote in June of 2007 with Rob Malley called "West Bank First- It Won't Work," you warned against strengthening the West Bank at the expense of Gaza in an attempt to bolster Fatah and marginalize Hamas.

But today the economy is growing and security has improved in the West Bank.  Fatah is seemingly strengthened by these developments as well as from its recent conference in Bethlehem. And some reports show Hamas is losing popularity to Fatah in the West Bank and in Gaza.  

Do these recent developments validate the so-called "West Bank-first" strategy?

What I meant by "West Bank first" is this notion that somehow you can create a conflict ending agreement between the State of Israel and half of the Palestinian national movement. I do not think that can be done.

I agree with you that the economy and security and maybe Mahmoud Abbas' standing has improved. All of these are positive developments, including the quite remarkable job Keith Dayton has done.  If you try to harness that, however, to a broader strategic objective in which the goal is to create a negotiation between Abbas and Israel to reach a conflict ending agreement, on the assumption that you will then put this on the shelf and it will somehow provide the basis on which Hamas will be forced to either put up or shut up-I think that strategy won't work.

Could a West Bank strategy actually work so that you would put Abbas in the position that he could, in fact, present a fait accompli to whatever percentage Hamas represents within the Palestinian public, and then find a way to unify the national movement on Fatah's terms?  Yes, but that would require things that, in my judgment, aren't available:

1. A comprehensive settlement freeze, including natural growth, in which the clock stops in terms of Israeli unilateral actions.
2. A commitment to negotiate, according to a timetable, the four core permanent status issues: Jerusalem, borders, security and refugees.
3. Most importantly, an actual agreement by the State of Israel on those four core issues that comes very close to meeting Palestinian national aspirations. And, in turn, of course, Palestinian decisions to meet Israeli national aspirations.

If you could somehow build into the negotiating environment these three extremely important pieces, then I would argue that the West Bank-first strategy, which is "build it and peace will come," would stand a chance of actually working.

But I don't see any of those conditions being met. There will be no comprehensive settlement freeze, including natural growth, which includes Jerusalem; there will be no hard fast timetable which sets the pace and schedule for permanent status negotiations. And, in my personal judgment, the gaps between Israelis and Palestinians on Jerusalem, borders, security and refugees are simply too large right now for either Netanyahu or Mahmoud Abbas to bridge.

So if you don't believe a settlement freeze will occur or that the gaps can be overcome...

I believe that in September or October the Obama administration will succeed in hammering out an agreement that takes restraints on settlements farther than any other U.S. administration or Israeli government has formally gone in the past. It will not have the durability, the comprehensiveness, or the air tight quality that the Arabs and the Palestinians want, but it will be a significant advance.

The agreement will be for a specific period of time, which will grandfather in a discreet set of units, with a quiet side understanding or two on what to do about Jerusalem.  And, it will include some self-restraining mechanism that would be used to restrict further activity on the Israeli side. Then the question becomes whether or not there will be reciprocity from the Arab states and from the Palestinians.

I think the whole package could then be wrapped up in some sort of an event, I call it "Madrid-Plus," that not only would launch negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians, and Israelis and Syrians, but also re-launch multilateral talks between Israel and the Arab States.

But the "Plus" part of it is the most intriguing piece. That is, knowing that the gaps, in my judgment, cannot be bridged by the parties themselves, will the Obama administration - after a decent interval of several months of the parties negotiating directly - be prepared to offer their own bridging proposals on each of the four core issues? Or, an even bolder approach, would the administration offer either a set of parameters or a formal agreement for the parties' consideration?

In your book, "The Much Too Promised Land" you mention Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and James Baker as the "bad boys" of American diplomacy who had what it takes to be successful in Mideast diplomacy.

You say each had "Five T's" in common. You write:

"Each man made the Arab Israeli issue a top priority; each was tough enough to push back abroad and at home when Arabs and Israelis tried to push him around; each was tenacious in his effort; each gained enough of the trust of the leaders to do serious business; and each had an astute sense of timing; the capacity to divine what Arabs and Israelis could actually accomplish."

I understand it is extremely early, but do you think Obama has the "five t's" that it takes?

The administration has demonstrated that it's prepared to make the Arab-Israeli issue a top priority.  It is unclear to me yet whether or not the administration's efforts will be able to include the other elements that I think are essential for success. And it's complex because the Obama administration has inherited a tougher, more complicated hand than Kissinger, Carter or Baker.

The Obama administration lacks the one ingredient that was critical to previous U.S. successes: the urgency of war in the case of Kissinger and the urgency of Sadat's peace moves in the case of Carter. These regional developments cracked the frozen table of the Arab-Israeli status quo and enabled smart and tough American diplomacy to succeed. Today you have a terrible situation, to be sure, but the risks of changing the status quo still outweigh the immediate risks of preserving it. And, unlike Kissinger, Carter and Baker, the substance that Obama confronts is far more galactically complex than any of his predecessors. So I think this is still very much a work in progress. I think the one essential ingredient from the administration's perspective is this: that it has decided to identify this as a critically important issue, to pay attention to it, and to designate the right kind of people to deal with it. But it can't be one hand clapping, and this is where it gets very complex: Will the Palestinian national movement, the government of Israel, and the Arab states be willing and able to stand up and to allow the Obama administration to work its diplomacy?  Because without straw there is no way you're going to make bricks. And as bad as the situation is for Arabs and Israelis, it's still quite manageable.

I think that the reason this administration differs from the others - and why the stakes are so much higher now than they ever have been before - is the fundamental reality that it is on this administrations' watch - whether it's 4 or 8 years - that the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will either come to fruition or become part of the trash can of history.

This (a two-state solution) is not going to last for 8 years. The facts on the ground, the facts in people's minds, the hopelessness, the despair, the confusion of the politics on each side will, in my judgment, over the next 4 to 8 years make a two-state solution almost impossible. So it's either going to happen with this administration or its not going to happen. And that makes this period truly consequential for the administration and for Arabs and Israelis.

American Jewish and other groups have clearly stepped up their advocacy on this issue.  How do you think domestic considerations might impact the current US peacemaking efforts?

All sustainable foreign policies in a democratic polity require sustainable domestic bases, and the pro-Israel community in this country - however divided it may be - is a very influential and powerful community, there's no question about that. They have ways of making their influence and their voices heard and they will continue to do so.

The issue is not whether lobbies lobby. The question is do presidents lead? I do not like, nor does it seem to me terribly important, to discuss all of what I call the "inside Jewish baseball tick-tock" between what AIPAC is doing, what J Street is doing, what the Conference of Presidents is doing, who shows up at this meeting, who was excluded from that meeting. All of this in my judgment is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not a president can craft a national narrative on the Arab-Israeli issue that advances America's national interest. If a president can do this and is smart, tough and fair about how he goes about it, then it seems to me the pro-Israel community, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, will come along, like the vast majority of other people who live in this country and supported the president.

Kissinger, Carter and Baker weren't dealing with matters that were nearly as consequential - like Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, refugees - as Barack Obama is going to have to deal with. But in each of their cases, they were plenty tough in asserting America's national interests. They also found ways to work with their respective Israeli prime ministers. And in the end, Israel, the American Jewish community, America's national interests, the Arabs and the Palestinians were stronger for it. So I try not to pay much attention to this. I hope the administration isn't paying that much attention. Because if they allow their policy to be hijacked, derailed, modified, altered in ways that could prevent it from moving forward and succeeding, they're not doing the job we elected them to do.

How concerned should President Obama be with only 6 percent of Israelis calling him "pro-Israel." What should he do about it?

I believe deeply that as an American national interest there ought to be a special relationship with the State of Israel for reasons that are only partly related to our hard interests in the Middle East. Value affinity, which is a critical expression of the broadest complexion of American national interest, impels this country to be extremely supportive and understanding of Israel's security needs and requests.  However, I do not believe in allowing that special relationship to morph and to evolve into the kind of exclusive relationship it became under the previous two administrations, Clinton and George W., in which we don't talk honestly to the Israelis when it comes to matters and actions they take that undermine our interests, when we insist that everything has to be run through Israel first, and when our own conditions in the negotiations are far more tailored to meet Israeli needs and requirements than they are to serve the best interests of the process as a whole. We don't need that. That undermines American interests.

I think that what Obama tried to do is to bring the special relationship back into focus from where it had been, which was far too exclusive.  In trying to do this, he exhibited a certain measure of tone-deafness with regard to Israeli sensibilities at a time when there is enormous nervousness on the part of Israel for reasons that may not have anything to do with the Arab-Israeli issue-Iran in particular. But with a new president and a tough-minded Likud Prime Minister, you have a sort of perfect storm of potential for misunderstanding brewing.

I would encourage the administration to exert its interests when it comes to what is required to maintain American credibility, but I think that the President - who is so good at reading the mood of his own public, so adept at being sensitive to the needs and requirements of the Arabs and the Muslims, which he did brilliantly in Cairo - somehow missed a beat here.

Because he is so persuaded that he is, in fact, a supporter of the State of Israel, and that he does understand them intellectually, that the emotive part of this, of what is required under these circumstances, simply got lost.  He now has created a problem for himself which is going to have to be fixed, and the very fact that he's going to have to fix this is not good for American interests or American credibility. But there's no question that he's created a problem. Toughness is absolutely essential and so is the quality of reassurance.

James Baker was not sentimental when it came to the issue of Israel. But Baker had two things going for him that Obama does not:

1. Baker was trying to put together a process, a meeting, in Madrid. He could be plenty tough with the Israelis. 
2. The Bush 41 administration was out there doing all kinds of things that benefitted the State of Israel, including pushing the former Soviet Union to ease up on emigration, kicking Saddam out of Kuwait and eliminating Iraqi scud capacity (even with the launch of 30-odd scuds in January of 1991).

Obama confronts a much different situation.

1. He has an Iran policy that has yet to really show much promise to deal with Israel's real concern of Iranian weaponization.
2. He's dealing with issues - Jerusalem, borders, refugees - that go well beyond the peace conference in Madrid.

So I think he is going to have to make sure that he has a much more astute total quality of how he's reading the Israelis. That includes, by the way, working out a reasonable relationship with the Prime Minister whose cooperation and support he's going to need if he plans to get anywhere on Iran and the Arab-Israeli issues.