[Peace-discuss] If you read only one thing

Thu Jan 8 20:18:32 CST 2009

[It's even worse than I thought. --CGE]

"Executives at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the think-tank
where Mr Ross works, told the organisation’s board that Mr Ross had 'accepted an
invitation to join the Obama administration as ambassador-at-large' in a job
'designed especially for him,' covering a range of issues from the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict to Iran...

"The incoming Obama administration is expected to appoint a number of special
envoys, likely to include Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the
United Nations, who is expected to cover issues including Afghanistan and Pakistan."

	Financial Times - January 8, 2009
	Obama picks Ross as Mideast envoy
	By Daniel Dombey in Washington

Dennis Ross, a former top diplomat for the George H W Bush and Clinton
administrations, will become the Obama administration’s top envoy on the Middle
East, an internal email from Mr Ross’s current employer has revealed.

Mr Ross, who previously served as the US envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, is set to take a wider role as Hillary Clinton’s top adviser for the
Middle East as a whole. Ms Clinton herself is due to appear before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee for her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State
next Tuesday.

Executives at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the think-tank
where Mr Ross works, told the organisation’s board that Mr Ross had “accepted an
invitation to join the Obama administration as ambassador-at-large” in a job
“designed especially for him,” covering a range of issues from the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict to Iran.

The email, first reported by Chris Nelson, a Washington-based foreign policy
expert, adds that Mr Ross “will not reprise his previous role as special
Arab-Israeli peace envoy, a post that will be held by someone else; rather he
will be working closely with both the special envoy and the secretary.”

Mr Ross is likely to strike a high profile in his new job, particularly given
the current Gaza conflict and mounting fears about Iran’s nuclear capacity. He
served as an adviser on the Middle East to president-elect Barack Obama during
the election campaign, calling for bigger carrots and bigger sticks to dissuade
Iran from developing nuclear weapons capacity.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a news organisation, reported this week that Mr
Ross told a meeting at a synagogue this week that if Hamas had ”the capability
to rearm” the current conflict would serve as “just a prelude” to the next round.

The agency reported that Mr Ross said achieving an Israeli-Palestinian agreement
would now be harder than the previous attempt with which he was involved in
2000, partly because the Israeli public did not believe such an agreement was
possible.

However people close to Mr Ross maintain he was volunteering more of a
description of Israeli thinking than an analysis of the US position on the conflict.

The incoming Obama administration is expected to appoint a number of special
envoys, likely to include Richard Holbrooke, the former US ambassador to the
United Nations, who is expected to cover issues including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> The facts of the matter refute the equations that have promoted the co-option
>  of the anti-war movement:
> 
> Bush = neocons = war = bad Obama = realists = peace = good
> 
> The realists are willing to be at least as belligerent as the neocons in 
> their prosecution of the SW Asian war. There is at best a tactical difference
>  between them, the latter wanting to attack Iran while the former think that 
> the dangerous source of opposition to US control of the region is to be found
>  in AfPak, so the murders should be concentrated there.
> 
> It's clear who's in charge now. --CGE
> 
> PS--But note that Clintonoid & Bush Sr. realist Dennis Ross (who's been 
> called "neocon-friendly" and a "soft neocon") has just been given the Iran 
> portfolio at State. La lotta continua.
> 
> 
> David Green wrote:
>> Accurate, and clears up some confusion I didn't know I had about the 
>> context of the resignations of the neocons.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ---- From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> To: 
>> David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> Cc: Peace Discuss 
>> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Sent: Thursday, January 8, 2009 12:16:52 AM 
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] If you read only one thing
>> 
>> David Green wrote:
>>> A historical, detailed passionate summary:
>>> 
>>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine/print
>> 
>> Absolutely right. But I think Shlaim gets one point wrong, a point that has
>>  some significance for understanding the factions in the USG. Writing about
>>  the national unity government formed in the spring of 2007 by Hamas and 
>> Fatah (after Hamas had won a democratic election in 2006) "that was ready 
>> to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel" -- Shlaim says
>> 
>> "...Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to 
>> overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive
>>  American neoconservatives [sic] participated in the sinister plot to 
>> instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the
>>  collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize 
>> power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup."
>> 
>> But David Rose's article ("The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008 
>> <http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804>) describes
>>  how
>> 
>> "the White House [sic] tried to organize the armed overthrow of the 
>> Hamas-led government after Hamas swept Palestinian elections [in  2006] ...
>>  the administration boosted military support for rival Palestinian faction
>>  Fatah in the aim of provoking a Palestinian civil war they thought Hamas 
>> would lose."
>> 
>> The point is that this plot was carried out not by neocons but by the 
>> "realists" in the administration -- and the neocons were outraged, because
>>  the plot involved arming the Fatah faction, while the neocons insisted
>> that all Palestinians of whatever faction should simply be suppressed.
>> Their detestation of the realists' policy led two leading neocons, David
>> Wurmser and John Bolton, to become the primary sources for Rose's expose --
>>  revealing how marginalized the neocons had become in Bush's second 
>> administration. (Wurmser resigned as Cheney's Mideast adviser in July 
>> 2007.)
>> 
>> The point is important because the same people who were running US Mideast
>>  policy in 2007-08 will be running it in 2009-10 -- and not just SecDef 
>> Gates. The "loss" of Gaza to Hamas was not due to the neocons but to the 
>> realists of the "permanent government."  --CGE
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list 
>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list 
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss