GFCA Packet
2013-2014
Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage
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Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage Index
Explanations
Debating the Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage ................................................................................................................................ 2
Negative
1NC — Shell
1NC — Diplomatic Capital DA .......................................................................................................................................................... 4
1NC — Cuba Link .............................................................................................................................................................................. 7
1NC — Mexico Link .......................................................................................................................................................................... 8
1NC — Venezuela Link ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9
2NC/1NR — Extensions
Link Extension — Latin America ..................................................................................................................................................... 10
Link Extension — Cuba ................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Link Extension — Venezuela .......................................................................................................................................................... 12
Link Extension — Mexico ............................................................................................................................................................... 13
They Say: “No Middle East Focus Now” — Asia Pivot .................................................................................................................... 14
They Say: “US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital” ............................................................................................................................ 16
They Say: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” ............................................................................................................................ 18
They Say: “Diplomacy Not Zero Sum” ............................................................................................................................................ 22
They Say: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” ............................................................................................................................. 24
They Say: “No Mid-East War” ......................................................................................................................................................... 27
Affirmative
2AC — Frontline Materials
2AC — No Middle East Focus — Asia Pivot .................................................................................................................................... 29
2AC — US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital ................................................................................................................................... 30
2AC — US Can’t Influence the Middle East .................................................................................................................................... 31
2AC — Diplomacy is Not Zero Sum ................................................................................................................................................ 32
2AC — State Department Diplomacy Fails ..................................................................................................................................... 33
2AC — No Mid-East War ................................................................................................................................................................ 34
1AR — Extensions
Extend: “No Middle East Focus — Asia Pivot” ............................................................................................................................... 35
Extend: “US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital” ............................................................................................................................... 37
Extend: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” ............................................................................................................................... 38
Extend: “Diplomacy is Not Zero Sum” ............................................................................................................................................ 39
Extend: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” ................................................................................................................................ 40
Extend: “No Mid-East War” ............................................................................................................................................................ 41
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GFCA Packet
2013-2014
Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage
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Debating the Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage (1/2)
Description:
The Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage argues that US economic engagement with Latin America trades off with our
current diplomatic focus on the Middle East. The US, in particular the State Department, is currently focused on
diplomatic issues in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, and Israel-Palestine. The plan forces the State Department to
spend time, energy, and other resources in Latin America, diverting their attention from these critical Middle East issues.
Lack of focus on the Middle East causes regional instability, which escalates to war.
Affirmative Answers:
The affirmative has responses to every part of the disadvantage. While cards are labeled “2AC,” aff teams should select
which arguments they want to make and construct a 2AC from the 2AC materials. Not all cards will be able to be read in
a single speech. Affirmatives should also consider making analytical arguments against the disadvantage.
The 2AC has evidence to support the following arguments:
 US diplomacy is not currently focused on the Middle East (because they’ve pivoted to focus on Asia) — the
disadvantage is not unique.
 The US won’t spend diplomatic capital resolving Middle East conflicts — there is no internal link.
 The US can’t influence ongoing issues in the Middle East — there is no internal link.
 Diplomacy is not zero sum — the US and State Department can work on both the Middle East and Latin America
at the same time — there is no link.
 State Department diplomacy is ineffective — there is no internal link.
 Middle East instability doesn’t escalate — there is no impact.
Terms:
Asia Pivot — A term referring to the Obama Administration’s desire to focus US diplomacy on East Asia instead of on the
Middle East. In debate, the affirmative will argue that the Asia Pivot means the US is no longer focused on the Middle
East. The negative will argue that the US never actually shifted to an Asia-focused foreign policy.
Diplomacy — The practice of conducting negotiations between parties, in particular between two or more nations.
Diplomacy often refers to negotiating treaties, but it also more generally applies to any set of high-level dialogues
between two nations. This disadvantage will argue that the US needs to focus its diplomatic efforts in order to make
them effective — trying to achieve too many aims at once limits the effectiveness of US diplomacy.
Diplomatic Capital — The idea that the US has only a certain amount of leverage to apply on other nations in order to
influence them. The US needs to pick and choose which issues it should engage diplomatically because “diplomatic
capital” is limited and must be conserved for only the highest priorities. In this debate, the negative will argue that the
limited nature of diplomatic capital means that the US should not do the plan because engaging Latin America trades off
with our ongoing engagement in the Middle East. The affirmative will argue that diplomatic capital does not trade off —
the US can focus on both the Middle East and Latin America at the same time.
Iran — Officially the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” also known as Persia. The United States is attempting to pressure Iran
not to obtain nuclear weapons. The negative will argue that the danger of Iran having nuclear weapons justifies the
ongoing US diplomatic focus in the region.
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Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage
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Debating the Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage (2/2)
Israel/Palestine Conflict — Also known as the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and
Palestinians over many issues including disputed territory in the Middle East. The US has many times attempted to
broker a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state next to the State of Israel, but
these efforts have so far been unsuccessful. The negative will argue that the importance of this conflict necessitates US
continued US emphasis on the Middle East.
John Kerry — The current US Secretary of State. (See “Secretary of State”)
Middle East Peace Process — Also known as the Arab-Israeli Peace Process or the Israel-Palestine Peace Process. The
official term for attempts by outside actors to influence Israel and Palestine to come to a peaceful resolution of the
Israel/Palestine conflict. The US has pushed for a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent
Palestinean state next to the State of Israel, but these efforts have so far been unsuccessful. The negative will argue that
the Peace Process demands the full diplomatic attention of the US.
Secretary of State — The Secretary of State is the head of the State Department. The position is a cabinet position
appointed by the president. The current Secretary of State is John Kerry. In President Obama’s first term, it was Hillary
Clinton. The Secretary of State implements the policies of the State Department and conducts high-level negotiations
with other nations. This disadvantage will argue that the State Department should focus on a single region so best to
influence global affairs.
State Department — The United States Department of State (DoS), often referred to as the “State Department,” is a US
federal executive agency responsible for international relations. It implements foreign policy as set by President Obama
and conducts US diplomacy efforts. It is led by the Secretary of State, currently John Kerry. This disadvantage will argue
that the State Department needs to focus its efforts on a single region so best to influence global affairs.
Syria — Officially the “Syrian Arab Republic,” Syria is a country in Western Asia. An ongoing civil war, also known as the
Syrian Uprising, began there in March 2011, with popular demonstrations that were part of the Arab Spring. Protesters
demanded that President Bashar al-Assad resign. The government is attempting to militarily quash the uprising,
including the possible use of chemical weapons. While the US condemned the use of violence against the protesters, we
have not intervened. In debate, the negative will argue that the importance of the Syrian conflict demands the US
continue focusing on the Middle East.
Zero Sum — A situation where one actor’s gain requires another’s loss. In debates, the negative will argue that because
diplomatic interactions are zero sum, the US can’t influence both Latin America and the Middle East at the same time.
The affirmative will argue that diplomacy is “not zero sum” — the US can conduct diplomatic negotiations in both Latin
America and the Middle East.
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1NC — Diplomatic Capital DA (1/3)
United States diplomatic focus has shifted to the Middle East — now key to determine future
priorities.
Borger 13 — Julian Borger, the Guardian's diplomatic editor, former correspondent in the US, the Middle East, eastern
Europe and the Balkans (“John Kerry looks to old allies as US foreign policy focus moves west,” The Guardian, February
25, 2013, Available Online: www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/25/john-kerry-foreign-policy-focus, Accessed:
08/07/2013)
The arrival of John Kerry in London on the first stop of his first foreign trip – followed by the ritual invocation of the
'special relationship' between the US and UK – and a joint declaration of intent on Middle East peace all point to a
return to business as usual in American foreign policy-making.
Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, made her maiden voyage as secretary of state to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea,
and China, underlining the Obama administration's intended "pivot to Asia", where America's greatest challenges and
opportunities were widely believed to lie.
Events however have conspired to complicate this overarching global strategy, and the old neighbourhoods have
proved hard to escape. In the face of the Arab spring , the continuing Syrian tragedy and the Iranian nuclear
challenge , Washington has found it impossible to extricate itself from the Middle East , and that in turn has reminded
Washington of its dependence on tradition allies, the UK foremost, in the bid to prevail on the world stage.
So Kerry, standing beside his British counterpart, William Hague, under the gilded ceiling of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, reminisced fondly about boyhood visits to Britain – even getting lost, and then found, by a kindly
stranger in London Zoo. He talked of the "common values and long-shared ties of family and friends" that constituted
the special relationship.
The rest of Kerry's itinerary also has a familiar 20th-century feel, reflecting the enduring hold of old alliances and areas
of vital American interests. He will be in Berlin on Tuesday, then Paris and Rome and Ankara, before going on to Saudi
Arabia and Qatar. The dominant themes will be Middle Eastern : Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, and
the familiar challenge will be how to maintain solidarity between the west and its Gulf allies in that arena.
Hague meanwhile basked in Kerry's recollection of the fights for "freedom and survival" US and Britain have shared. For
a British foreign secretary, there is no higher policy goal than staying close to Washington, and Hague had bet heavily on
Kerry when the then-senator from Massachusetts visited the Foreign Office while still vying for the state department
with the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice. The foreign secretary treated him as if he already had the job.
The two men now find common cause in seeking to persuade their governments to take a more activist stance on Syria,
though both still balk for now at arming the rebels directly. Hague also sees in Kerry a potential ally in persuading
Obama to take a hands-on role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The new secretary of state did not go as far as
Hague, who declared there was "no more urgent foreign policy priority in 2013", but he is committed to travelling with
Obama to Israel and the West Bank next month.
It is no guarantee that Washington will stay involved in the normally thankless task of Middle Eastern peacemaking,
and the logic of America's long-term interests in the Pacific is as strong as ever. But for the UK and Europe this first
Kerry outing on the world stage marks a hopeful sign that the Obama administration is prepared to revisit familiar, if
intractable, problems.
[Insert Specific Link]
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1NC — Diplomatic Capital DA (2/3)
US must conserve diplomatic capital — key to international support and US national security.
Schaefer 2K — Brett D. Schaefer, Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, former
assistant for international criminal court policy at the Pentagon, M.A. in international development from the School of
International Service at American University (“Green Creep: The Increasing Influence of Environmentalism in U.S.
Foreign Policy,” In The Greening of
U.S. Foreign Policy, ed. Terry L. Anderson and Henry I. Miller, Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, p. 46. Available Online from
Amazon Preview)
Diplomacy is the first option in addressing potential threats to U.S. national interests and expressing U.S. concerns
and priorities to foreign nations. The daily conduct of diplomacy through U.S. missions and representatives is essential
in articulating U.S. interests and eliciting cooperation and support for those interests abroad.
Because diplomacy currency is finite —clearly, foreign countries and officials cannot be expected to endlessly support
and promote U.S. concerns—it is critically important that the United States focus its diplomatic efforts on issues of
paramount importance to the nation. Traditionally, these priorities had been opposing hostile domination of key
geographic regions, supporting our applies, securing vital resources, and ensuring access to foreign economies (Holmes
and Moore 1996, xi-xvii).
Focused US engagement in the Middle East key to prevent regional instability.
Kahl 13 — Colin Kahl, Associate Professor at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, Senior Fellow at the Center
for a New American Security, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East (“Hard Choices for the
New Middle East,” Defense One, July 15, 2013, Available Online: http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2013/07/hardchoices-new-middle-east/66626/, Accessed: 08/09/2013)
The Obama administration may want to “pivot” away from the Middle East toward Asia, but events are not
cooperating.
Millions take to the streets in Egypt, leading to a military takeover of a democratically elected -- but deeply flawed -Islamist government. A brutal civil war rages in Syria, as sectarian spillover threatens security in neighboring Lebanon
and Iraq. Protests challenge the monarchies in Bahrain and Jordan. A leadership transition looms on the Saudi
horizon. A new Iranian president raises hope of moving beyond the nuclear impasse as Tehran creeps closer to an
atomic bomb. Secretary of State John Kerry races between Jerusalem and Ramallah to jumpstart a stalled IsraeliPalestinian peace process before the hope of two states for two peoples dies.
In recent years, the pace of change in the region has been so overwhelming that the administration’s tendency to take a
reactive, crisis-driven approach is understandable. But the time has long passed for a reassessment of overall U.S.
strategy in what remains a vital region . Any such reassessment must start with a recognition that the United States
has, and will continue to have, profound interests in the Middle East: countering terrorism and the proliferation of
w eapons of m ass d estruction, ensuring the free flow of oil, protecting Israel’s security, and promoting the reforms
essential for the region’s stability .
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1NC — Diplomatic Capital DA (3/3)
Middle East war is probable and devastating — strong U.S. involvement is needed to prevent
nuclear escalation.
London 10 — Herbert I. London, President of the Hudson Institute—a non-profit think tank, Professor Emeritus and
former John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University, holds a Ph.D. from New York University, 2010 (“The
Coming Crisis In The Middle East,” Gatestone Institute—a non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and
think tank, June 28th, Available Online at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1387/coming-crisis-in-the-middle-east,
Accessed 08-10-2013)
The coming storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum ; like conditions prior to World War I, all it takes for
explosive action to commence is a trigger .
Turkey's provocative flotilla, often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission, has set in motion a gust of diplomatic
activity: if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, which they have apparently decided not to do in favor of land operations, it could
have presented a casus belli. [cause for war]
Syria, too, has been playing a dangerous game, with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah
is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles, and Syrian territory has been serving as a conduit for military materiel from Iran since the end of the
2006 Lebanon War.
Should Syria move its own scuds to Lebanon or deploy its troops as reinforcement for Hezbollah, a
wider regional war with Israel could not be
contained .
In the backdrop is an Iran, with sufficient fissionable material to produce a couple of nuclear weapons. It will take some time to
weaponize the missiles, but the road to that goal is synchronized in green lights since neither diplomacy nor diluted sanctions can convince Iran to change course.
From Qatar to Afghanistan all political eyes are on Iran, poised to be "the hegemon" in the Middle East; it is increasingly considered the
"strong horse" as American forces incrementally retreat from the region. Even Iraq, ironically, may depend on Iranian ties in order to maintain internal stability.
For Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, regional strategic vision is a combination of deal-making to offset the
Iranian Shia advantage, and attempting to buy or develop nuclear weapons as a counterweight to Iranian ambition.
However, both of these governments are in a precarious state; should either fall, all bets are off in the Middle East
neighborhood. It has long been said that the Sunni "tent" must stand on two legs: if one, falls, the tent collapses.
Should this tent collapse, and should Iran take advantage of that calamity, it could incite a Sunni-Shia war . Or feeling empowered,
and no longer dissuaded by an escalation scenario, Iran, with nuclear weapons in tow , might decide that a war
against Israel is a distinct possibility. However implausible it may seem at the moment, the possible annihilation of Israel and the
prospect of a second holocaust could lead to a nuclear exchange .
The only wild card that can change this slide into warfare is an active United States' policy. Yet, curiously, the U.S. is engaged in both
an emotional and physical retreat from the region.
Despite rhetoric which suggests an Iran with nuclear weapons is intolerable, the U.S. has done nothing to forestall this eventual outcome. Despite the investment in
blood and treasure to allow a stable government to emerge in Iraq, the anticipated withdrawal of U.S. forces has prompted President Maliki to travel to Tehran on a
regular basis. Further, despite historic links to Israel that gave the U.S. leverage in the region as well a democratic ally, the Obama administration treats Israel as a
national security albatross that must be disposed of as soon as possible.
As a consequence, the U.S. is perceived in the region as the "weak horse," the one dangerous to ride. In every Middle East capital the words "unreliable and United
States" are linked. Those individuals seeking a moderate course of action are now in a distinct minority. A political vacuum is emerging, one that is not sustainable
and one the Iranian leadership looks to with imperial exhilaration.
It is no longer a question of whether war will occur, but rather when it will occur, and where it will break out.
There are many triggers to ignite the explosion, but not many scenarios for containment. Could it be a regional war in which
Egypt and Saudi Arabia watch from the sidelines, but secretly wish for Israeli victory? Or will this be a war in which there aren't victors, only devastation? Moreover,
should war break out, what does the U.S. do?
This is a description far more dire than any in the last century
and, even if some believe that it is overly pessimistic, Arab and Jew, Persian
and Egyptian, Muslim and Maronite tend to believe in its veracity -- a truly bad sign.
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1NC — Cuba Link (1/1)
Ending the Cuban embargo saps Kerry’s diplomatic capital — it’s not a current priority.
Miroff 7/31 — Nick Miroff, Cuba reporter for GlobalPost, contributor to NPR, Washington Post, Mother Jones and the
San Francisco Chronicle, MA in Journalism from Berkeley (“Can Kerry make friends with Cuba?,” GlobalPost, Available
Online: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/cuba/121231/kerry-cuba-secretary-of-stateobama, Accessed: 07/31/2013)
Now, with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) likely to be confirmed as the next secretary of state, the United States will have a top diplomat who
has been a frequent critic of America’s 50-year-old effort to force regime change in Havana.
In recent years, Kerry has been the Senate’s most prominent skeptic of US-funded pro-democracy efforts that give financial backing to dissident
groups in Cuba and beam anti-Castro programming to the island through radio and television programs based in Miami.
Kerry has also favored lifting curbs on US travel to the island, and opening up American tourism to the only country in the world the US government restricts its own
citizens from visiting.
For the rest of Latin America, where leaders say they're eager for Washington to modernize its view of the region and engage in new ways, Cuba remains “a litmus
test” for the Obama presidency, according to Julia Sweig, director of Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The strategic benefits of getting Cuba right would reverberate throughout the Americas,” said Sweig, calling Kerry “ideally suited to the task.”
“Kerry's instincts and experience in Latin America are to see past lingering and often toxic ideology in the US Congress and bureaucracy in favor of pragmatism and
problem solving,” she said.
Regardless of Kerry’s record on Cuba policy in the Senate, analysts say he will face several obstacles to major change, not least
of which will be the man likely to replace him as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), a Cuban American.
If Menendez becomes chairman, then the committee responsible for shaping US foreign policy in the upper house will be led by a hardliner who wants to ratchet up
— not dial back — the US squeeze on Havana.
So while
Kerry may have some latitude to adjust Cuba policy from inside the White House, Latin America experts don’t expect
sweeping change — like an end to the Cuba Embargo — which requires Congressional action.
“On Latin America, in general, I think Kerry has a longer and broader vision,” said Robert Pastor, professor of international relations at American University. But
when it comes to Cuba, he cautioned, “Kerry is also a political realist.”
“Changing US policy is not a high priority for him, but not changing US policy is the only priority for Bob Menendez,” Pastor said.
In 2011, Kerry delayed the release of nearly $20 million in federal funds for pro-democracy Cuba projects run by the US Agency for International Development
(USAID), questioning their effectiveness and insisting on greater oversight.
“There is no evidence that the ‘democracy promotion’ programs, which have cost the US taxpayer more than $150 million so far, are helping the Cuban people,”
Kerry said at the time. “Nor have they achieved much more than provoking the Cuban government to arrest a US government contractor.”
The US government contractor is Alan Gross, jailed on the island since December 2009. Cuban authorities arrested Gross while he worked on a USAID project to set
up satellite communications gear that would allow members of Cuba’s Jewish community to connect to the internet without going through government servers.
Cuba sentenced him to 15 years in prison, but now says its willing to work out a prisoner swap for the “Cuban Five,” a group of intelligence agents who have been
serving time in a US federal prison.
The Obama administration has refused to negotiate, calling on Havana to release Gross unconditionally, and even US lawmakers who advocate greater engagement
with Cuba say no change will be possible as long as he’s in jail.
The Castro government insists it’s not willing to give up Gross for nothing.
Carlos Alzugaray, a
former Cuban diplomat and scholar of US-Cuba relations at the University of Havana, said a resolution to
the Gross case and other significant changes in US policy would “require a big investment of political capital” by Kerry and
Obama.
“The question is if Kerry will be willing and able to convince Obama that he should push for change, and if they can neutralize Menendez,” Alzugaray said.
“If that happens, then we will see change,” he said. “If not, it will be more of the same: minimal and timid changes but nothing big.”
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1NC — Mexico Link (1/1)
Border infrastructure improvement requires substantial State Department investment of resources
— the planning process is complex.
Lee and Wilson 12 — Erik Lee, Associate Director at the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona
State University, former assistant director at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California-San
Diego, holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California-San Diego, and Christopher E. Wilson,
Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, previously served as a
Mexico Analyst for the U.S. Military and as a researcher at American University’s Center for North American Studies,
holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University, 2012 (“The State of Trade, Competitiveness and
Economic Wellbeing in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region,” Working Paper of the Border Research Partnership—comprised
of Arizona State University’s North American Center for Transborder Studies, the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and the
Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, June, Available Online at
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/State_of_Border_Trade_Economy_0.pdf, Accessed 08-10-2013, p. 1819)
Coordination and Cooperation: Border Master Plans and the Interagency Process
Managing the U.S.-Mexico border is made particularly difficult by the large number of federal, state, and local
government entities that manage and protect the border and surrounding transportation infrastructure.
While the State Department and Mexico’s Foreign Ministry clearly guide and coordinate most bilateral issues, in the
case of the border they must work alongside a number of federal stakeholders , such as Commerce/Economía,
DHS/Gobernación, DOT/SCT, and EPA/SEMARNAT, to name but a few. In light of border region complaints over the
slowdown in crossborder commerce due to increased concerns regarding terrorism and drug-trafficking related violence,
the Obama Administration reconfigured the interagency process by which the U.S. federal government coordinated its
various border operations as a part of the 21st Century Border initiative. The National Security Staff Interagency Policy
Committee sits at the nexus of a new Executive Steering Committee and three major components, Infrastructure
Planning, Port Operations, and Corridor Security. Figure 7, on the next page, gives an idea of this still-complex process by
which the U.S. federal government organizes itself in terms of border operations. [end page 18]
[Graph/Chart omitted]
A key component of how the U.S.-Mexico border functions to facilitate trade has to do with transportation planning
because in its absence infrastructure investments on one side of the border or in one region can simply feed traffic into
a bottleneck in another area. This process is largely managed by the Joint Working Committee, a binational entity
comprised of representatives from the two countries’ transportation agencies, the State Department , Mexico’s
Foreign Ministry, other federal agencies and state departments of transportation, but as border communities felt
themselves increasingly affected by decisions made in Washington and Mexico City, their insistence in being included in
these discussions led to the regional border master plan process, in which state DOTs lead stakeholder discussions on
border infrastructure priorities. While this process makes sense from a U.S. perspective (in the absence of a national
transportation plan, state DOTs essentially manage and spend federal transportation dollars), this process is somewhat
of a mismatch for Mexico’s more centralized political system. The system seems to work better in certain cross-border
communities, as is seen with California and Baja California’s award-winning master plan.
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1NC — Venezuela Link (1/1)
Engaging with Venezuela costs diplomatic capital — it’s an ongoing uphill battle.
Shifter 13 — Michael Shifter, Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign
Service (“The Empire Makes Nice: Is it time for a Venezuela reset?” Foreign Policy, March 11, 2013, Available Online:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/11/the_empire_makes_nice_venezuela_hugo_chavez, Accessed:
07/31/2013)
Absent Chávez, Venezuela will continue to be tricky in the second Obama administration. The administration will need
to arrive at a more accurate on-the-ground reading of what is happening in the country. It will need to engage in
quiet, steady, high-level diplomacy with key allies in the region not only to closely monitor the security situation and
guard against dire scenarios but to press for free and fair elections and adherence to the rule of law. None of this will
be easy, and recent history is not encouraging . But Chávez is gone, and although for now some measure of continuity
in Venezuela is most likely, conditions of scarcity -- in charisma, money, and political astuteness -- will soon be acutely
felt. It is important not to forget that Chávez was able to do what he did for 14 years for a simple reason -- because he
could.
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Link Extension — Latin America (1/1)
Kerry focused on the Middle East — no major changes to Latin American policy.
Harper 13 — Liz Harper, Senior Editor at US Institute of Peace, Contributing blogger at Americas Quarterly, Former
Hoover Institution Media Fellow at Stanford (“What Secretary of State John Kerry Could Mean for Latin American
Affairs,” Americas Quarterly, February 1, 2013, Available Online: http://americasquarterly.org/content/what-secretarystate-john-kerry-could-mean-latin-american-affairs, Accessed: 08/07/2013)
John Kerry, the longtime Democratic U.S. senator representing Massachusetts from 1985 until this week, was confirmed
on Tuesday as the next secretary of state. He assumes the post today, and has some pretty big shoes, or heels, to fill
after Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure.
What does this mean for Latin American affairs? What change awaits U.S. foreign policy?
Not much.
Based on observations from well-placed State Department sources and Kerry’s nearly four-hour confirmation hearing,
however, there are a few hints of what’s to come.
First, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson will stay on, according to my
sources. This is good news, given her masterful dexterity in bureaucratic and congressional machinations and crossagency management—notably regarding counternarcotic efforts—in addition to her regional expertise. However, her
office could become savvier with using U.S. media to present policy positions to American audiences. Not only does the
United States need to win the hearts and minds of those abroad, it needs to bolster support for policies at home.
Beyond this, I’m not going to regurgitate the rumors of who’s staying, who may be going or already gone, but I will say
that the State Department has lost a few good minds for greener pastures, while others are staying put for now.
Second, the State Department may possibly see a more proactive stance on the “outlier” countries in Latin America, or a
clarification of the U.S. position. It may just be my wishful thinking, but during his confirmation hearing Kerry said,
“Depending on what happens in Venezuela, there may really be an opportunity for a transition there.” Of course, many
would have preferred that our next secretary of state called out the government of Hugo Chávez for its ties to
narcoterrorists, its support for countries like Cuba, Iran and Syria, and its disregard for freedom of the press. Still, Kerry
did diplomatically imply that a Chávez death would present the chance for a positive change.
And, to draw a contrast to those “outlier” states, Kerry lauded former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s leadership as
a model for transformative leadership for other countries in the region, noting that other Andean nations needed to
make a “better set of choices.”
As a notable aside, Kerry’s past record tempers much hope he’ll be more assertive with authoritarian strongmen,
namely with his meeting with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in 1985. In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal Mary
Anastasia O’Grady provided background to Kerry’s 1985 meeting.
Third, a Kerry State Department should see continued improvements on supporting the rights of women and girls in
Latin America and elsewhere, namely to augment their roles “as peacemakers,” to use Kerry’s words.
Finally, and most importantly, the U.S. should expect a robust pursuit of its economic interests in the hemisphere. Kerry
was quick to recognize that “[m]ore than ever, foreign policy is economic policy.”
“I am especially cognizant of the fact that we can’t be strong in the world unless we are strong at home—and the first
priority of business which will affect my credibility as a diplomat working to help other countries create order, is
whether America at last puts its own fiscal house in order,” Kerry said in his prepared remarks.
In all, during Kerry’s confirmation hearing, Latin America was mentioned seven times, and Mexico specifically 12
times. In contrast , Afghanistan was mentioned 35 times and Iran 24, according to a useful word cloud in the Wall
Street Journal. Given the security flare-ups in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the instability throughout North
Africa, it’s reasonable that the Western Hemisphere remains on the backburner.
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Link Extension — Cuba (1/1)
Cuban engagement trades off with other diplomatic priorities.
Leogrande 13 — William M. Leogrande, Government Professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs (“The
Danger of Dependence: Cuba’s Foreign Policy After Chavez,” in The Isolation Illusion: Foreign Policymaking in Cuba,
Zimbabwe and Belarus, a World Politics Review Feature Report, April 2, 2013, Available Online from Google Books,
Accessed: 08/07/2013)
Obama took some early steps that augured well. In April 2009, he ended restrictions on Cuban-American remittances
and family travel and subsequently eased regulations limiting cultural and academic exchange. At Washington's
initiative, the United States and Cuba resumed bilateral talks on migration, suspended by President George W. Bush in
2004. The two governments also began discussions on other issues of mutual interest, such as Coast Guard cooperation
and drug interdiction.
But the momentum in Washington soon dissipated in the face of more pressing foreign policy priorities , opposition
from Congress, even among some Democrats, and resistance from an inertial State Department bureaucracy more
comfortable with the familiar policy of the past -- its failure notwithstanding -- than the risk of trying something new. As
a former senior State Department official explained, high-visibility foreign policy changes of this magnitude only
happen if the president demands that they happen, and Obama's attention was focused elsewhere . In December
2009, Cuba's arrest of Alan Gross, a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development's "democracy
promotion" programs, brought all progress to a halt. At the end of Obama's first term, relations with Cuba were not
much better than at the start.
The focus is on the Middle East — Cuba isn’t a diplomatic priority.
Luxner 12 — Larry Luxner, news editor of The Washington Diplomat (“Cuba Welcomes Pope, As U.S. Slams Door on
Easing Embargo,” The Washington Diplomat, February 29, 2012 (Published in the March 2012 edition), Available Online:
www.washdiplomat.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8222:cuba-welcomes-pope-as-us-slamsdoor-on-easing-embargo&catid=1484:march-2012&Itemid=497, Accessed 08/07/2013)
Wilkerson, who just returned from a trip to Havana, is a visiting professor of government and public policy at the
College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Before being appointed Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005 and
associate director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, he served 31 years in the Army.
The problem today, he explained, is that Cuba policy isn't a priority for an administration consumed with the war in
Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear aspirations and continuing economic strife.
"People don't care about Cuba, and you can't blame them," he said. "After all, we've got Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and a
financial situation in this country that I think is as profound as the Great Depression. So it's very difficult to get
Americans' attention about 11.5 million people living on an island 90 miles off the Florida Strait."
That's even more so in a presidential election year like 2012, said the retired colonel.
"Karl Rove once told Colin Powell, 'Don't touch Cuba because we want Florida's 27 electoral votes,'" he recalled. "Dick
Cheney also knew our Cuba policy was idiotic, but even he knew that you don't touch Cuba policy. The Obama
administration is the first to get into the White House without the hard-line Cuban vote in Florida, so they have a little
more flexibility with regard to that reality. However, it's still a very difficult move for the Democrats to make."
Indeed, the Obama administration has moved cautiously with regard to Cuba policy. Like all presidents before him,
Obama opposes lifting the embargo outright . Yet just over a year ago, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Assets Control relaxed rules that had been imposed seven years earlier by President George W. Bush to squeeze the
Castro regime. The new rules allow "persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" to send up to $500 every
three months, or $2,000 a year, to recipients in Cuba "to support the development of private businesses" in that
country.
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Link Extension — Venezuela (1/1)
Venezuelan energy investment requires long-term commitment to diplomacy.
Goldwyn 13 — David Goldwyn, President, Goldwyn Global Strategies, LLC (“The Impact of the Tight Oil and Gas Boom
on Latin America and the Caribbean: Opportunities for Cooperation,” Testimony before the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs; Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on “Energy Opportunities in Latin America and the
Caribbean,” April 11, 2013, Available Online: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20130411/100622/HHRG-113FA07-Wstate-GoldwynD-20130411.pdf, Accessed: 07/31/2013)
The three countries that need robust attention at this time are Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela.
Mexico is considering major reforms and we have much we can share at a technical level on gas markets,
unconventional oil and gas technology, safe regulation of the deepwater, and energy efficiency. We should create a
quiet bilateral mechanism for sharing this information with Mexican ministries, its nascent regulator and PEMEX.
Changing global markets also impact Brazil, and we should ensure that the Strategic Energy Dialogue is reactivated as
soon as new officials are on board at the Department of Energy. Venezuela is trickier because it is in political transition
and there is a great deal of rhetorical hostility. But the US had a technical dialogue with Venezuela that lasted over 30
years. We need to know the new officials at the Ministry and PdVSA and to share our view of market realities, even if
we may not agree on them. Sometime in 2013, after the Venezuelan elections, this technical dialogue should be
revived, perhaps at the Assistant Secretary, or Deputy Assistant Secretary level.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, the ties between Latin America and the Caribbean and the energy security of the
United States are numerous. Here I have addressed only a few of the possible avenues for improving U.S. energy
security, and there are undoubtedly more, but the overarching conclusion is that energy security goals in the
Hemisphere can be achieved through improved dialogue and relations with allies and adversaries alike. As I stated in
2008, it will require new approaches to energy and foreign policy. It will require fresh policy approaches, money, and
creative diplomacy . But more than anything it will require leadership. As a citizen I thank the committee for its
leadership on this critical issue.
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Link Extension — Mexico (1/1)
Engagement with Mexico costs diplomatic capital.
Ayala 9 — Elaine Ayala, Columnist, San Antonio Express News, Former President of the San Antonio Association of
Hispanic Journalists (“Obama will have to ‘invest’ diplomatically in Latin America,” My SA: San Antonio’s Home Page,
January 19, 2009, Available Online: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/latinlife/2009/01/obama-will-have-to-investdiplomatically-in-latin-america/, Accessed: 07/31/2013)
The Washington Post writes a tough editorial about President-elect Obama’s Latin America agenda. While President
Bush faced many democratic-leaning countries when he entered office, Obama faces more anti-American-leaning
ones, and not just Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The editorial also says Mexico may be Obama’s more pressing
Latin American issue. Mexican President Felix Calderon’s war against drug cartels “threaten to destroy Mexico’s
relatively fragile institutions. “By the president’s own account, some 6,000 persons were killed in drug-related violence
during 2008, a level of bloodshed exceeding that of Iraq. The Bush administration initiated a $1.4 billion aid program to
help Mexican security forces, and Congress has appropriated the first $400 million. But little has been done to stop the
massive flow of weapons — not just guns but grenade launchers, night vision equipment and high explosives — from the
United States.” In April, President Obama will attend a summit of the Americas, as good as any opportunity to address
those issues, the Post editorial says. Unlike Bush, the new president “has an objective and urgent interest in investing
some of his diplomatic capital in Latin America.”
Building trade ties with Mexico requires a shift in U.S. focus.
Seguin 13 — Israel Hernández Seguin, Deputy Director of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations, 2013 (“Open
Borders: Collaboration Between Mexico and the U.S.,” Chicago Policy Review, Interview conducted by Jonathan
Grabinsky — his questions are italicized, February 14th, Available Online at
http://chicagopolicyreview.org/2013/02/14/5011/, Accessed 08-10-2013)
The United States and Mexico are closely connected geographically and economically. In what ways—if any—will the
change in administration in Mexico and the re-election of President Obama influence the US-Mexico diplomatic
relationship?
The tie with the United States is the most important diplomatic relationship that Mexico has. Likewise, Mexico is one
of the strongest trading partners of the United States. Unfortunately, issues such as illegal immigration, counternarcotic
plans, border security (after 9/11), and the war on drugs have clouded other matters of equal importance, such as
economic issues, for more than two decades.
The change in administration in both countries offers a new opportunity to refocus the priorities of the bilateral
relationship . But it is Mexico that needs to take the lead at reframing the agenda, as the United States will always
remain concentrated on issues of pressing domestic interest . Fortunately, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has
stated his administration’s interest in strengthening the economic relationship between both countries.
Many experts have recommended building a regional economic agenda for North American competitiveness. This
requires strong political communication and strategic thinking about all the opportunities and potentials that lie
ahead. It is challenging to maneuver a regional agenda for competitiveness, however, when the United States seems
more focused currently on building its economic relationship with Asia , as seen by the recent emphasis in the Trans
Pacific Partnership.
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They Say: “No Middle East Focus Now” — Asia Pivot (1/2)
Asia pivot is over — 2nd term focus is Middle East.
The Hill 13 — Byline Julian Pecquet, Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Hill (“Lawmakers welcome Obama's 'new emphasis'
on Middle East in second term,” The Hill, February 18, 2013, Available Online: http://thehill.com/blogs/globalaffairs/middle-east-north-africa/283545-lawmakers-welcome-obamas-new-emphasis-on-middle-east-in-secondterm#ixzz2bTljcVsU, Accessed: 08/09/2013)
Lawmakers are applauding what they see as President Obama's “new emphasis” on the Middle East in his second
term after Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed this week that he would be headed there ahead of the president's
trip in March.
The twin visits are a tacit acknowledgment that the troubled region's problems — the civil war in Syria, Iran's nuclear
ambitions and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process — continue to dominate U.S. foreign policy . Lawmakers
say the timing, coming after elections in both the United States and Israel, is ripe for Obama and his top diplomat to
visit both Israel and her neighbors and set the tone for the next four years.
“If this signifies a new emphasis on the region. I think it's a good thing for the country,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the
top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“We have to be careful in our haste to finally wash our hands of all these wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] that we continue
to be focused on [in] the region," he said. "So I think the emphasis on the Middle East will have to be there. It's the
core of where Islamic terrorism comes from. We obviously have a stake in that. Israel is our staunch ally. We have a
stake in her well-being, and we also want to make sure that Iran is not a nuclear power.”
The trips represent somewhat of a break from the first term's much-vaunted “pivot to Asia.”
Hillary Clinton went on a weeklong tour of Asia for her first trip abroad as secretary of State “to convey that America’s
relationships across the Pacific are indispensable to addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st
century,” she said at the time.
But Kerry will travel to Turkey, Egypt and several more Middle Eastern and European nations later this month but will
bypass Israel for now. Obama, for his part, is making his first trip as president to Israel and also visiting the West Bank
and Jordan in March.
US will stay engaged in Middle East now — Syria, Iran, Peace Process.
Solomon 13 — Jay Solomon, writes about foreign affairs and national security for The Wall Street Journal (“Mideast
Defies U.S. Bid to 'Pivot’,” Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2013, Available Online:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324128504578344650918925918.html, Accessed: 07/29/2013)
CAIRO—The Obama administration hopes to "pivot" away from a hyper-focus on the Middle East during its second
term, but John Kerry's maiden overseas mission as secretary of state—a nine-nation odyssey across Europe and the
Persian Gulf—highlighted why that goal may be elusive.
Imminent threats posed by Syria's civil war and Iran's nuclear program , and longer-term challenges of Egypt's
flagging economy and the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process , dominated Mr. Kerry's 11-day trip, even his stops in
European capitals.
"You think with Syria on the verge of collapse and Iran on the brink of a nuclear weapons capability, the U.S. can pivot
away from the Middle East?" said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. " Washington will
have to stay engaged ."
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They Say: “No Middle East Focus Now” — Asia Pivot (2/2)
Asia pivot hasn’t happened — US still engaged in Middle East.
Rapoza 13 — Kenneth Rapoza, Forbes Contributor, former writer for the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s (“Military
Part Of Revising Asia Pivot, New Diplomat Says,” Forbes, June 22, 2013, Available Online:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/06/22/time-to-re-pivot-the-asia-pivot-new-diplomat-says/, Accessed:
08/10/2013)
Washington‘s so-called “pivot” towards Asia hasn’t happened like President Obama promised five years ago. The
United States is still mired in Middle Eastern dramas and worried about its big capital partners and allies in Europe. We
aren’t any more Pacific focused now than we were in the 1980s when Vietnam was becoming just another sad
memory.
US diplomatically invested in Middle East — secret meetings prove.
Yahoo! News 7/30 — Byline Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News (“Obama hosts Israeli, Palestinian peace negotiators,” Yahoo!
News, July 30, 2013, Available Online: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hosts-israeli--palestinian-peace-negotiators140617583.html, Accessed: 08/08/2013)
President Barack Obama is hosting the lead Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in newly resumed Middle East peace
talks at the White House on Tuesday, officials said. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry also will
take part, an administration official told Yahoo News.
The officials requested anonymity to discuss a meeting that was not on the president's public schedule .
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that Obama was expected to deliver a diplomatic pep talk , urging both sides “to
exhibit goodwill and to remain focused and steadfast throughout the talks.”
Still, even if chiefly a symbolic show of support as the two sides embark on a difficult diplomatic journey, the meeting
sends an unmistakable sign that the Obama administration is serious about putting its political capital on the line in
search of the elusive goal of Middle East peace.
"I know the negotiations are going to be tough, but I also know that the consequences of not trying could be worse,"
Kerry said Monday. The former Massachusetts senator has played a critical role in restarting the process, making
frequent trips to the region in an effort to pull both sides back to the negotiating table.
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They Say: “US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital” (1/2)
US investing diplomatic capital in the Middle East — Kerry focus proves.
Bloomberg 7/22 — Byline Indira A.R. Lakshmanan & Nicole Gaouette, Bloomberg News Staffwriters (“Kerry’s Dayand-Night Pursuit Reaps Fragile Mideast Talks,” Bloomberg News, 7/22/2013, Available Online:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-21/kerry-s-day-and-night-pursuit-reaps-fragile-mideast-talks.html,
Accessed: 07/26/2013)
While Kerry “can’t carry it all on his shoulders day-in and day-out,” no choice has been made on an envoy to lead the
U.S. team being assembled for the talks, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters today in Washington.
The last negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians broke down three years ago after Netanyahu declined to
extend and expand a 10-month building freeze on new construction in West Bank settlements.
While Kerry couldn’t have engaged in his intensive Mideast diplomacy without the approval of President Barack
Obama -- who spoke by phone with Netanyahu as the negotiations intensified last week -- the secretary of state has
invested his own diplomatic capital in what had become a moribund effort under his predecessor, Hillary Clinton.
From U.S. interests in Africa and Asia to the Persian Gulf, Kerry said at his Senate confirmation hearing in January, “all of
this is tied to what can, or doesn’t, happen with respect to Israel and Palestine.”
Diplomatic Slog
Kerry, 69, who often emphasizes his background as the son of a Foreign Service officer and his decades of meetings with
world leaders when he served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was undeterred by the slog of diplomacy .
On his repeated visits to the region, he traveled by car, plane and helicopter to engage separately with Israeli and
Palestinian officials in talks that sometimes went well past midnight.
US investing diplomatic capital in the Middle East — new attention proves.
Birnbaum 7/9 — Ben Birnbaum, Writer for the New Republic living in Jerusalem (“Netanyahu Could Save the TwoState Solution: His political future might depend on it,” The New Republic, 7/9/2013, Available Online:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113784/benjamin-netanyahus-two-state-solution-conversion#, Accessed:
07/26/2013)
But times have changed. Netanyahu’s current coalition is more centrist than his last one. His chief peace negotiator,
Tzipi Livni—who was also Olmert’s chief negotiator—is Israel’s most prominent advocate for the two-state solution. And
Kerry, unlike Hillary Clinton, seems prepared to invest the necessary diplomatic capital to see any talks succeed.
Kerry, for his part, is reported to be floating compromise formulas which would see Israel freeze construction outside
the major blocs and agree to base talks on President Obama’s May 2011 speech (which calls for a Palestinian state on
the 1967 lines with swaps, as well as recognition of Israel as a Jewish state). Israel seems prepared to accept these
compromises. The Palestinians should, too.
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They Say: “US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital” (2/2)
US diplomacy focused on Middle East effort now — time and effort are critical.
Klapper and Lee 13 — Bradley Klapper, AP US Foreign Policy Reporter, and Matthew Lee, AP State Department
Reporter (“Top diplomat Kerry battles to deliver on big ideas,” Associated Press, Published on Yahoo! News, June 22,
2013, Available Online: http://news.yahoo.com/top-diplomat-kerry-battles-deliver-big-ideas-134244552.html, Accessed:
08/07/2013)
In four months as secretary of state, John Kerry has certainly promised great things. Now he has to deliver.
In the Middle East, he has raised hopes his solo diplomatic effort can produce a historic breakthrough ending six decades of
Arab-Israeli conflict.
He has pledged to bring Syrian President Bashar Assad's government to heel and to work with Russia to end Syria's
civil war.
He has suggested rolling back U.S. missile defense in the Pacific if China can help rid North Korea of nuclear weapons. He has hinted at possible one-on-one talks
between the U.S. and the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if it would help.
Since succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as America's top diplomat, Kerry has issued several as yet undelivered — and perhaps undeliverable — pledges to allies and
rivals alike, proving a source of concern for Obama's policy team. It is trying to rein in Kerry somewhat, according to officials, which is difficult considering Kerry has
spent almost half his tenure so far in the air or on the road, from where his most dissonant policy statements have come.
The White House quickly distanced itself from both Kerry's North Korea remarks and has now, since President Barack Obama's meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin in Northern Ireland this past week, seen up close the strength of Moscow's resistance to Kerry's Syria strategy.
All the officials interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to evaluate Kerry's performance publicly.
Reporting for work at the State Department in February, the former Democratic senator from Massachusetts quickly outlined his ambitions.
Clinton still harbored thoughts of a second potential presidential run when she arrived at the department. But aides say Kerry, a 69-year-old Vietnam veteran, is
giving himself completely to a job that in many ways is the climax of his political career and the realization of a lifelong dream after years as chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. Now he wants
to tackle head-on the world's thorniest foreign policy conundrums.
Kerry, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "believes this difficult moment in the world requires a willingness to address complicated issues. He
believes the risk of high-stakes, personal diplomacy are far less than the risk of leaving difficult situations to fester or
spiral out of control. That's why he has invigorated our efforts in critical areas — such as North Korea, Syria and the
Middle East peace process — and has personally invested time and effort to move the ball forward."
US focusing on the Middle East — peace process efforts prove.
Bloomberg 7/22 — Byline Indira A.R. Lakshmanan & Nicole Gaouette, Bloomberg News Staffwriters (“Kerry’s Dayand-Night Pursuit Reaps Fragile Mideast Talks,” Bloomberg News, 7/22/2013, Available Online:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-21/kerry-s-day-and-night-pursuit-reaps-fragile-mideast-talks.html,
Accessed: 07/26/2013)
When John Kerry stepped onto his plane in Amman, Jordan, after announcing he had brokered a preliminary deal to
restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, his staff broke into applause.
The U.S. secretary of state has invested his prestige and much of his time , through day-and-night shuttle diplomacy in
six trips over six months, in reviving negotiations that broke off in September 2010. The immediate goal is for Israeli
and Palestinian negotiators to meet in Washington “within the next week or so,” Kerry told reporters on July 19.
“With formidable odds, Kerry managed through his own willfulness and determination to produce the basis for talks,”
Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator and adviser to several U.S. administrations, said in an
interview. “This would not have occurred without John Kerry.”
The flip side is that now “Kerry owns these talks” and must shoulder the burden of bringing Israeli and Palestinian
negotiators to the table and keeping them there to negotiate a two-state solution, according to Miller, a vice president
of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. That was underscored in Kerry’s
announcement, which was hedged with uncertainties.
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They Say: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” (1/4)
US diplomacy works in the Middle East — but focus is key.
Guttman 13 — Nathan Guttman, Washington bureau chief for The Forward, former Washington correspondent for
the Israeli dailies Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post (“Two Books Offer Dueling Peace Roadmaps as Obama Prepares for
Trip to Middle East,” The Jewish Daily Forward, February 27, 2013, Available Online:
http://forward.com/articles/171942/two-books-offer-dueling-peace-roadmaps-as-obama-pr/?p=all, Accessed:
08/08/2013)
Members of the USIP group, though not discussing the president’s upcoming trip in their book, call for Obama to take
steps that will reassert America’s role in leading Israelis and Palestinians toward peace.
William Quandt suggested that based on the group’s research, it is important for the president to make sure he is
pursuing Middle East peace because he believes it is a crucial U.S. national security interest . “If our attitude is that
we cannot want peace more than the parties, it will not work,” he said. Another lesson Quandt put forth was the need
to act quickly instead of waiting for the last months in office, when presidential political power wanes.
According to Kurtzer, while the United States cannot impose an agreement, it can use its diplomatic strength and
make clear to both sides that the president is putting his weight behind the issue . “The parties have a way of
knowing when America is not serious,” he said. The research found that special envoys, for example, were rarely useful
in pushing the sides closer. Progress has come only in cases in which the president and secretary of state showed
they care personally, he said. The appointment of John Kerry to run the State Department and his reported interest in
the Arab-Israeli conflict could move the U.S. closer to taking the kind of role authors of the USIP report discussed.
* USIP Report = Report by the U.S. Institute of Peace on US diplomacy in the Middle East. It was authored by Daniel
Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt; William Quandt, a former Middle East adviser for Presidents Nixon
and Carter; Scott Lasensky, a researcher currently with the Obama administration, and additional scholars from UCLA
and the University of Maryland.
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They Say: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” (2/4)
US political will key element in Middle East Peace.
Kurtzer 13 — Daniel Kurtzer, Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs, former US Ambassador to Egypt and Israel (“Obama's Middle East push must break
the mold,” Deutsche Welle, April 30, 2013, Available Online: http://www.dw.de/obamas-middle-east-push-must-breakthe-mold/a-16780795, Accessed: 08/08/2013)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been decoded. Both sides and the US know exactly what it takes to solve it. Now it is
time for Barack Obama to show that he is not just going through the motions again.
Every effort to advance Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations can expect to face four separate but related crises:
confidence-destroying activities on the ground; political turmoil that complicate leaders' ability and readiness to negotiate; a deep
substantive divide over all the core issues; and active attempts by spoilers, opponents of the peace process, to undermine the
process.
As each of these crises occurs - and, if history is a guide, all of them are certain to confront the parties and the United States sooner or later - the
political will , determination , and political backbone of all sides will be tested. For the Obama administration, its
responses to these crises will determine how serious it is serious about trying to achieve peace.
Unsettling settlements
The administration is well-versed in these problems and thus logically should be prepared. Thus far there has been no apparent
success in achieving an Israeli settlements freeze, although recent press articles have suggested a de facto slowdown on the ground. Since settlement activities
remain one of the most vexing problems Palestinians face in deciding whether a peace push is serious, how the United States reacts to the inevitable Israeli
announcements of new construction will be critical.
This is especially important in three geographic areas: E-1, the stretch of land between Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim to the east; in Jerusalem
itself, in particular in the ring of neighborhoods that surround the Old City on the eastern side; and outside the area encompassed by the Israeli security barrier, that
is, beyond the small percentage of West Bank land that is likely to be part of land swaps in a peace accord.
On the politics of peace making, the Obama administration, like its predecessors, is well-attuned and sensitive to the always-dynamic and usually-chaotic political
situation in Israel. The question thus is whether it will manifest equal sensitivity to Palestinian politics.
Weakened partner
After the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority is much weaker, and therefore the PLO, Israel's negotiating partner, is
commensurately weaker. Second, the Fatah-Hamas and West Bank-Gaza divides are crippling Palestinian politics, and until now the United States has opposed efforts
at reconciliation.
The Israelis and Palestinians are intimately familiar with their adversaries' substantive positions on the four core issues of territory/borders; security; Jerusalem; and
refugees. The United States should also be intimately familiar with these issues, although the total upheaval in the American peace team, from Secretary of State
John Kerry on down, raises a serious question as to the institutional memory in Washington.
Spelling it out
More fundamentally, the question is whether the administration will continue long-standing practice and avoid expressing a view on the substantive issues, or
whether the administration will articulate parameters on those issues to serve as terms of reference for negotiations. Without this US role, it is hard to see the parties
themselves reaching agreement on the terms of reference even if they say they are ready to negotiate.
Fourth, the spoilers are already at work trying to undermine the prospects of negotiations and peace.
Palestinian terrorists continue to smuggle weapons, including more sophisticated rocketry, and are now using the security vacuum in Sinai to open another terror
front against Israel. On the other side, a small but very nasty and active group of settlers is becoming a law unto itself, exacting its brand of "justice" on Palestinians
and their property. Neither the Palestinian Authority nor Israel is doing nearly enough to curb these actions. Can and will the United States act?
Gather external support
On each of these issues, the jury is still out whether the administration will muster the political will, determination,
and backbone to sustain a serious peace effort. In this respect, the role of the other Quartet members - the European Union, Russia, and United
Nations - becomes even more important in bolstering the resolve of the international community to try to end this conflict.
Similarly, the role of the Arab world, as reflected in the Arab Peace Initiative, is also critical, as it provides a safety net for the hard decisions Palestinians must take
and also provides incentives for the risky decisions Israel must take. Until now, these two support structures have not been very effective.
By now, there are almost no mysteries remaining in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or peace process. Like two familiar foes on the field, the two sides strategize,
maneuver, and play out their tactics with a depressing sense of déjà vu.
So, too, the third party, the United States, takes the playing field knowing all too well what to expect and presumably experienced in
the wiles of the parties. Whether Israelis, Palestinians, and the United States again simply go through the motions of this
familiar game remains to be seen.
It doesn't have to be this way.
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They Say: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” (3/4)
US diplomacy key to Middle East Peace — most comprehensive historical study proves.
Omestad 13 — Thomas Omestad, Senior Writer at the U.S. Institute of Peace (“‘The Peace Puzzle:’ A New Book Aims
to Set the Record Straight on U.S. Peacemaking in the Middle East,” United States Institute of Peace, January 22, 2013,
Available Online: http://www.usip.org/olivebranch/the-peace-puzzle-new-book-aims-set-the-record-straight-uspeacemaking-in-the-middle-east, Accessed: 08/08/2013)
The story of American diplomatic engagement with the Middle East peace process, it seems, is primarily written through the
memoirs of former senior policymakers. These are volumes full of exclusive, high-level insights and recollections that are critical to our
understanding of the subject, but they also inevitably prompt suspicions of bias and self-serving memories. Those memoirs, valuable as
many are, don’t eliminate the need for dispassionate, questioning analysis.
Such analysis, to be most useful in sorting through successes and failures, needs to be informed by access to historical archives (including newly available
documents when possible) and to the U.S. officials who were most intimately involved in the U.S. attempts to encourage and broker peace between Israelis and Arabs
over recent decades. Yet it also needs
the hands of experienced Mideast watchers who are able to maintain some intellectual
remove from those who once helped run U.S. policy—including even themselves.
This need to try earnestly for objectivity supplied much of the impetus for a book published this month by the U.S. Institute of Peace
and Cornell University Press: “The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011.”
It’s a comprehensive look at the vitally important U.S. role in seeking a resolution of the conflict in the post-Cold War
era, from the Madrid peace conference to the end of former Senator George Mitchell’s run as the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Middle East. The
book emerged from USIP’s Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking and is written by Daniel C. Kurtzer, Scott B. Lasensky, William B. Quandt, Steven L. Spiegel and
Shibley Z. Telhami. It builds on an earlier USIP book by Kurtzer and Lasensky: “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East.”
The book doesn’t wallow in pessimism, and so its message to those involved with policy is timely. Even as commentators bemoan the current, depleted state of peace
efforts, the
authors of “The Peace Puzzle” maintain that U.S. presidential-level commitment to seeking peace can be
effective and remains essential to progress, and that two states with the full realization of Palestinian statehood remains the only viable end
result of a negotiated peace.
At the same time, the writers supply useful correctives about U.S. Mideast diplomacy and establish a more complete version of the recent record, including
assessments that are not always flattering from Washington’s perspective. The
authors, for instance, explore why the Clinton administration
“expressed so little interest and played almost no role in the substance of the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles or in the mutual Israel-PLO
recognition that accompanied the process.” The authors (including Kurtzer, a key member of Secretary of State James Baker’s peace team at the time) frankly decry it
as “an example of not paying adequate attention to a diplomatic process not conceived in Washington.” Preoccupied instead with developing an Israel-Syria peace
track, the
authors conclude that the relative lack of U.S. interest
opportunity to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace.
in the Oslo process contributed
to the loss of an
Elsewhere in the book, the writers take to task the administration of President George W. Bush for insisting on the holding of Palestinian elections—and then being
shocked by the 2006 electoral victory of Hamas, an Islamist movement branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
“We can question why the faith in elections trumped concerns about a party being allowed to run that was committed to the use of violence…and that was not
expected to meet [the international community’s] conditions for recognition of Israel,” they write. Those elections led to Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, a dramatic and
enduring setback for the Palestinian Authority’s ability to represent all Palestinians and to take risks for peace in dealing with Israel.
“The Peace Puzzle” also puts forward 11 ways that American diplomacy in Arab-Israel peacemaking can be
strengthened. They include accepting the critical U.S. role in reassuring both Israelis and Palestinians, recognizing
that international leadership on the peace quest can’t be outsourced and acting to build trust and confidence with even
difficult regional leaders in order to produce results.
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They Say: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” (4/4)
Diplomacy solves major Middle East challenges — but timing and cooperation is key.
Diehl 10 — Jackson Diehl, Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor (“A Mideast opportunity Obama shouldn't
ignore,” Washington Post Editorials, April 19, 2010, Available Online: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041802726.html, Accessed: 08/08/2013)
"Timing is everything in life," George Mitchell said this year while discussing his daunting job as a Middle East envoy. It's
a piece of wisdom that applies perfectly to the Obama administration's troubles in the region -- and one that, curiously
enough, Mitchell and his boss have willfully ignored.
The United States faces three big strategic challenges in the Middle East. One is the threat of Iran. The second is the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the third is the corrupt and crumbling Arab autocracies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
and half a dozen other states, which fuel Islamic extremism and provide almost all of al-Qaeda's recruits.
U.S. diplomacy can have an impact on all of those problems -- but Washington can't impose solutions by itself . It has
to seek or create moments of opportunity and then use them well. Policy has to be based on not only what the White
House aspires to do but also what conditions on the ground make possible.
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They Say: “Diplomacy Not Zero Sum” (1/2)
Diplomatic Capital is finite — new issues trade off with existing priorities.
Anderson and Grewell 2K — Terry L. Anderson, Executive Director of the Property and Environment Research
Center and J. Bishop Grewell, former research associate for PERC, J.D. from Northwestern (“The Greening of Foreign
Policy”, PERC Policy Series: PS-20, December 2000, Available Online: http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps20.pdf, Accessed:
08/08/2013)
Greater international environmental regulation can increase international tension. Foreign policy is a bag of goods that
includes issues from free trade to arms trading to human rights.
Each new issue in the bag weighs it down, lessening the focus on other issues and even creating conflicts between
issues.
Increased environmental regulations could cause countries to lessen their focus on international threats of violence such
as the sale of ballistic missiles or border conflicts between nations.
As countries must watch over more and more issues arising in the international policy arena, they will stretch the
resources necessary to deal with traditional international issues. As Schaefer (2000,
46) writes, “Because diplomatic currency is finite . . . it is critically important that the United States focus its
diplomatic efforts on issues of paramount importance to the nation. Traditionally, these priorities have been opposing
hostile domination of key geographic regions, supporting our allies, securing vital resources, and ensuring access to
foreign economies.”
[*Ellipses in original.]
Diplomatic capital is limited — hard choices and triage are inevitable.
Cooke and Downie 10 — Jennifer G. Cooke, Director, Africa Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) and Richard Downie, Deputy Director and Fellow with the CSIS Africa Program (“African Conflicts and US
Diplomacy: Roles and Choices,” A Report of the CSIS Africa Program and the American Academy of Diplomacy, January
10, 2010, Available Online:
http://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/programs/Ross/AAD_CSIS%20Africa%20Program%20Final%20Report%20Oct2009
.pdf, Accessed: 07/31/2013, pp. 6-7)
Faced with Limited Resources and Changing Priorities, Deciding When, If, and How to Intervene Is More Important than
Ever
U.S. engagement can take on many forms, ranging from humanitarian assistance to diplomacy to military action. Given finite resources and
capacities, the United States must often make hard choices on how much diplomatic capital to invest in crisis or conflict situations. It
cannot invest equally in every crisis or potential crisis. In intervening in these situations, decisionmakers must be careful and sensitive in setting
ground rules for engagement since intervention is never impartial—it can decide, for better or worse, who governs, who eats, and who survives. At the same time,
setting rules for where, when, and how to intervene has become more difficult as U.S. interests in Africa have become harder to define following the end of the Cold
War.
The reality is that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis or in response to events. A triage process is inevitable ,
whereby possible types and places of intervention are ordered in terms of priority and their likelihood of success, based on the
availability of resources. For this reason, U.S. diplomatic activity has focused on the Horn of Africa and Sudan in particular, to the detriment of other crises
such as those in the Great Lakes region or Niger Delta. Decisionmakers must make hard-nosed decisions in setting criteria for intervention. Among the criteria that
policymakers need to consider, said Crocker, are cases where U.S. security interests are at stake; where a crisis risks having broad, regional consequences; where the
United States is expected to take the lead; where the United States can usefully follow the lead of others such as the United Nations; and where grave humanitarian
values are at stake and where domestic public opinion demands that the United States provide policy leadership. The United States must also take into account the
willingness of African governments and regional bodies to accept such leadership.
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They Say: “Diplomacy Not Zero Sum” (2/2)
Focusing elsewhere trades off with focusing on the Middle East — the U.S. can’t walk and chew
gum at the same time.
Rajagopalan 13 — Rajesh Rajagopalan, Professor in International Politics at the Centre for International Politics,
Organization and Disarmament at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India),
formerly served as Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and as Research Fellow at the
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York, 2013 (“Why
India-US should look at developing a soft alliance,” The Economic Times, July 22nd, Available Online at
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-07-22/news/40727730_1_india-us-strategic-dialogue-attentionspeech, Accessed 08-10-2013)
Considering that most analysts expect a split verdict at the polls, it is unclear how important foreign policy will be for the
next government in New Delhi, irrespective of who heads it. This is all the more reason to put some momentum in the
relationship now. Washington has its own problems.
An important one is the level of attention that the Obama administration will devote to this region. In his speech,
Biden argued that Europe will continue to be the "cornerstone" of America's global engagement. In addition, though
Biden only briefly mentioned the Middle East, Kerry has had a breakthrough in restarting the negotiations between
Israel and the Palestinians. But it came after a lot of shuttle diplomacy, and as the real negotiations resume in the
coming weeks, American attention is likely to shift towards the Middle East. One unfortunate consequence could be
that its attention to the Asian region will flag.
Biden has dismissed such concerns, arguing that great powers can do all these things simultaneously, that they can
" walk and chew gum at the same time ", as he put it. Maybe the US can indeed walk and chew gum, but recent
experience suggests that the US has difficulty in focusing on multiple strategic theatres at once . With the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the US's attention to the Asian region waned for almost a decade . The fact that the US had to
"pivot" back to Asia shows that Asian concerns about Washington's propensity to take its eye off the ball are not
misplaced . Commentators in the region have already noted the mixed message in Biden's speech.
State Department focus key to the Middle East — must invest time, energy, and political capital.
Feldman 13 — Shai Feldman, Director of Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies and a Senior
Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (“The Tough Task of Middle East
Peace,” The National Interest, February 27, 2013, Available Online: http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-toughtask-middle-east-peace-8158, Accessed: 08/09/2013)
Requirement 2: Secure time , energy and political capital . The expenditure of these scarce commodities by the
president and the secretary will be required for at least three reasons: First, the Arab-Israeli conflict is very
complicated and very resilient. For over sixty-five years it has eluded many efforts to resolve it. For the Obama
administration to succeed where most previous administrations have failed will require a heroic effort. Second, the
conflict is as much a part of the U.S. domestic agenda as it is part of its international relations. And third, Israeli and
Arab leaders have been spoiled and expect the personal involvement of U.S. presidents (Carter, Clinton) or their
secretaries of state (Kissinger, Baker, Christopher, Albright, Rice). As a result, they will not deal seriously with anyone
of lesser rank.
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They Say: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” (1/3)
No failure of diplomacy — aff evidence ignores historic successes.
Denmark 10 — Abraham M. Demark, fellow at the Center for a New American Security, former Country Director for
China Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon (“This Is What Victory Looks Like,” Foreign Policy,
February 9, 2010, Available Online: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/09/this_is_what_victory_looks_like,
Accessed: 08/10/2013)
It's easy to reminisce about the supposed grandeur of America's good-old days. Before China was rising, before Russia
was roaring, and before Brazil was fit to be a BRIC, the United States canvassed the globe with its impressive,
blockbuster diplomacy. By comparison, today's state visits are frustrating, compromises come slowly, and international
summits produce little. It leaves any casual observer wondering: What happened?
Such is the lamenting nostalgia of Aaron David Miller in his recent FP article, "The End of Diplomacy?" The author
hearkens back to a time when diplomacy achieved big things. He fears that the image of a "shuttling secretary of state ...
achieving dramatic breakthroughs with spectacular secret diplomacy seems a world away."
Miller might be right in one sense; U.S. diplomatic ambitions have shrunken since the days of the Warsaw Pact and
NATO. But that shift is no accidental decline . Today's world is more subtle ; the challenges are more numerous and
complex than those of the past. So while the Cold War world necessitated broad diplomatic strokes, today's
negotiators must paint in detail. In short, the world changed, and Washington did too.
According to Miller, U.S. foreign policy from 1945 to 1991 was a mix of disasters, such as the Vietnam War, and brilliant
achievements, including the Marshall Plan and the creation of NATO. The past 16 years by comparison were a supposed
"diplomatic dry patch" in which the United States achieved little, succeeded even less, and failed to find victory in a host
of places from Somalia to Pakistan, Afghanistan to Iraq.
Miller's dismissal of the past 16 years, however, doesn't stand up to scrutiny . He overlooks the U.S. leadership that
led to monumental peace treaties in Northern Ireland (the Belfast Agreement) and Bosnia (the Dayton Accords). He
neglects to mention the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the expansion of NATO, or even the
coaxing of Libya away from nuclear weapons. None of these are of the same magnitude as, say, the Marshall Plan, true.
But Washington didn't get weak ; it just got smart .
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They Say: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” (2/3)
No end of diplomacy — US efforts have shifted to become more effective.
Grunstein 10 — Judah Grunstein, Editor-in-Chief, World Politics Review (“The Beginning of (True) Diplomacy,” World
Politics Review, February 24, 2010, Available Online: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/5182/thebeginning-of-true-diplomacy, Accessed: 08/10/2013)
In some ways it's good that it took me a few weeks to get around to discussing Aaron David Miller's piece in Foreign Policy from earlier this month, titled "The End
of Diplomacy," because I found less to dislike about it on second reading. But even though I usually find Miller pretty convincing, I've still got some misgivings
about this one. The article essentially casts the by-now familiar trope of the "Rise of the Rest" as the failure of American
diplomacy -- surprising, since Miller himself states that he's not a "declinist." Here's the heart of the his argument:
America never ran the world . . . but there were moments (1945-1950, the early 1970s, 1988-1991) when the United States marshaled its military, political,
and economic power toward impressive ends.
For most of the last 16 years, however -- under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- America has been in a diplomatic dry patch. In the face of terrorism,
nuclear proliferation, wars of choice, and nasty regional conflicts, conventional diplomacy has either not been tried or not been very successful. . . .
The Obama administration wants to do this kind of stuff. And it has done pretty well in managing the big relationships with Russia and Europe, though it
has had its share of problems with China. But frankly, these are the easy ones. It's not from the big that the president's problems come; it's from the small.
The problem here, though, is not American diplomacy per se, but that the end of the Cold War returned so many of the
world's problems back into the "small" category -- where they rightfully belonged. Once disaggregated from the cataclysmic stakes of the U.S.Soviet rivalry and the default positions required by bloc allegiances, problems became more regionally contained, and the range of interests and policy options for
previously constrained local actors broadened significantly.
So it's
not so much that American diplomacy has failed, so much as that it hasn't yet been tried . Put another way, in the
absence of nuclear doomsday scenarios, the marketplace of foreign policy ideas became significantly more competitive. And the U.S. is just now getting
around to realizing that it needs to advance its arguments on a case-by-case basis, and win on the merits, in order to bring
on board previously captive audiences.
Now, some of those "small" problems have begun to re-aggregate into bigger ones with the emergence of
transnational threats in an increasingly interconnected world. But in many ways, the "Rising Rest," like the U.S., is still
reacting to the opening represented by the post-Cold War and to the subsequent disastrous efforts, under the Bush
administration, to close things back up. So naturally, the U.S. is facing obstructionism that is rendered more effective by
the shift in global power centers.
But here's the thing (and it's something that I only managed to put into words yesterday during a Skype conversation with the ever-formidable Michael Cohen): If you
look at the periods that Miller cites as highpoints of American diplomacy, they all represent moments when circumstances conspired to concentrate the world's
attention at the same time that the U.S. was the only global actor capable of leading the required effort.
As I said to Cohen yesterday, there
are plenty of possibe scenarios that could concentrate the world's attention in the same way
today , and despite the relative decrease in America's visible power these days, we remain the only global actor capable of
leading the effort such scenarios require. So in addition to the potential power that remains at America's disposal,
there remains what I called a latent power at our disposal that is present in the world's collective unconscious and
individual national psyches. (And yes, Cohen duly mocked me for putting it in those terms.)
This is more than just a "They'll miss us when we're gone"-type phenomenon. It's
a conditioned reaction that is the product of history, habit
and experience, and which could be triggered very easily by any number of contingencies : a Chinese overreach in Asia, a Russian
adventure in Central Asia or Eastern Europe, a Venezuelan disaster in South America, or a host of others. Any one of these scenarios would very quickly
bring to light the enormous latent reservoir of power and influence that remains at our disposal, even if it isn't visible
or even "convertible" at will.
In the meantime, that doesn't change the fact that power has shifted, with the result being that our influence is no longer the default position around the world. But
that just means it's time to work toward the beginning of true American diplomacy, not to signal its demise.
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They Say: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” (3/3)
Targeted diplomacy effective — priority setting key.
Denmark 10 — Abraham M. Demark, fellow at the Center for a New American Security, former Country Director for
China Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon (“This Is What Victory Looks Like,” Foreign Policy,
February 9, 2010, Available Online: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/09/this_is_what_victory_looks_like,
Accessed: 08/10/2013)
What we are witnessing is not the end of diplomacy, but rather Washington's attempt to manage the very system it
created. Initiatives like the Marshall Plan or NATO were well-suited for their time but would not be effective in the
complex , multipolar brave new world that is emerging. The coming years will still require some major diplomatic
initiatives , especially on issues of trade and climate change. But in most cases, good diplomacy will mean the lessgrandiose, everyday task of integrating diplomatic, military, economic, and soft power to confront the world's
challenges. It will also mean making the case to the American people that U.S. interests are best pursued by staying
politically and economically engaged in the world. In the aftermath of a devastating economic crisis, it won't be easy to
fight back isolationist and protectionist sentiments.
In the end, diplomacy is not all about size ; it's about having a vision for what the world can and should be, and
knowing how best it can be achieved . The world Washington sees today is profoundly different from the one that Cold
War strategists saw before. It would be a mistake if the strategic toolbox were still the same.
US diplomacy successful — smaller initiatives create global stability.
Denmark 10 — Abraham M. Demark, fellow at the Center for a New American Security, former Country Director for
China Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon (“This Is What Victory Looks Like,” Foreign Policy,
February 9, 2010, Available Online: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/09/this_is_what_victory_looks_like,
Accessed: 08/10/2013)
Big diplomacy made sense in the early years of the Cold War, when Secretary of State Dean Acheson; director of the
State Department's policy planning office, Paul Nitze; and Ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan made
containing the Soviet Union priority number one. Creating NATO and undertaking the Marshall Plan were large-scale,
straightforward initiatives that matched the United States' large-scale, straightforward containment strategy.
Washington also pursued a second, interrelated strategy: developing and maintaining a healthy international system.
And there, the United States has largely succeeded as well. Globalization itself is largely an American construction. It
was the United States that led the way in bringing down trade barriers, opening and sustaining the global commons
(such as international maritime commerce, which accounted for 90 percent of global trade in 2008), and creating a
network of robust international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. None of these battles are over, but the gains won so far have added significantly to
global stability and prosperity. If Acheson, Nitze, and Kennan were to see the world today, they would call it a
tremendous victory.
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They Say: “No Mid-East War” (1/2)
Middle East war will escalate and go nuclear — shifting balance of power.
Primakov 9 — Yevgeny Primakov, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation,
Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Editorial Board of Russia in Global Affairs, has served in a
variety of government roles in Russia and the Soviet Union including Russian Foreign Minister, Prime Minister of Russia,
Speaker of the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and chief of the intelligence service, this
article is based on the scientific report for which the author was awarded the 2008 Lomonosov Gold Medal of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009 (“The Fundamental Conflict: The Middle East Problem in the Context of International
Relations,” Russia in Global Affairs, Volume 7, Number 3, July-September, Available Online at
http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/105702/ichaptersection_singledocument/71a40dca-23cb-411d-9c5da7ce495e2522/en/12.pdf, Accessed 08-10-2013, p. 130-132)
The Threat of Globalization of the Middle East Conflict
The Middle
East conflict is unparalleled in terms of its potential for spreading globally . During the Cold War, amid which the Arab-
Israeli conflict evolved, the two opposing superpowers directly supported the conflicting parties: the Soviet Union supported Arab countries, while the United States
supported Israel. On the one hand, the bipolar world order which existed at that time objectively played in favor of the escalation of the Middle East conflict into a
global confrontation. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and the United States were not interested in such developments and they managed to keep the situation
under control. [end page 130]
The behavior of both superpowers in the course of all the wars in the Middle East proves that. In 1956, during the Anglo-French-Israeli military invasion of Egypt
(which followed Cairo’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal Company) the United States – contrary to the widespread belief in various countries, including Russia –
not only refrained from supporting its allies but insistently pressed – along with the Soviet Union – for the cessation of the armed action. Washington feared that the
tripartite aggression would undermine the positions of the West in the Arab world and would result in a direct clash with the Soviet Union.
Fears that hostilities in the Middle East might acquire a global dimension could materialize also during the Six-Day War of 1967. On its eve, Moscow and Washington
urged each other to cool down their “clients.” When the war began, both superpowers assured each other that they did not intend to get involved in the crisis
militarily and that that they would make efforts at the United Nations to negotiate terms for a ceasefire. On July 5, the Chairman of the Soviet Government, Alexei
Kosygin, who was authorized by the Politburo to conduct negotiations on behalf of the Soviet leadership, for the first time ever used a hot line for this purpose. After
the USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli forces, which later claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson immediately notified
Kosygin that the movement of the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean Sea was only intended to help the crew of the attacked ship and to investigate the incident.
The situation repeated itself during the hostilities of October 1973. Russian publications of those years argued that it was the Soviet Union that prevented U.S.
military involvement in those events. In contrast, many U.S. authors claimed that a U.S. reaction thwarted Soviet plans to send troops to the Middle East. Neither
statement is true.
The atmosphere was really quite tense. Sentiments both in Washington and Moscow were in favor of interference, yet both capitals were far from taking real action.
When U.S. troops were put on high alert, Henry Kissinger assured Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that this was done largely for domestic considerations and
should not be seen by Moscow as a hostile act. In a private conversation with Dobrynin, President Richard Nixon said the same, adding that he might have
overreacted [end page 131] but that this had been done amidst a hostile campaign against him over Watergate.
Meanwhile, Kosygin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko at a Politburo meeting in Moscow strongly rejected a proposal by Defense Minister Marshal Andrei
Grechko to “demonstrate” Soviet military presence in Egypt in response to Israel’s refusal to comply with a UN Security Council resolution. Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev took the side of Kosygin and Gromyko, saying that he was against any Soviet involvement in the conflict.
The above suggests an unequivocal conclusion that control by the superpowers in the bipolar world did not allow the Middle East conflict to escalate into a global
confrontation.
After the end of the Cold War, some scholars and political observers concluded that a real threat of the Arab-Israeli conflict
going beyond regional frameworks ceased to exist. However, in the 21st century this conclusion no longer conforms
to the reality . The U.S. military operation in Iraq has changed the balance of forces in the Middle East. The disappearance of
the Iraqi counterbalance has brought Iran to the fore as a regional power claiming a direct role in various Middle East processes. I do
not belong to those who believe that the Iranian leadership has already made a political decision to create nuclear weapons of its own. Yet Tehran seems to have set
itself the goal of achieving a techno- logical level that would let it make such a decision (the “Japanese model”) under unfavorable circumstances. Israel
already
possesses nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. In such circumstances, the absence of a Middle East settlement
opens a dangerous prospect of a nuclear collision in the region , which would have catastrophic consequences for
the whole world .
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They Say: “No Mid-East War” (2/2)
Middle East war will escalate — strategic instability risks miscalculation and nuclear war.
Russell 9 — James A. Russell, Senior Lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate
School, 2009 (“Strategic Stability Reconsidered: Prospects for Escalation and Nuclear War in the Middle East,” Security
Studies Center, Spring, Available Online at http://www.ifri.org/downloads/PP26_Russell_2009.pdf, Accessed 08-102013, p. 41)
Strategic stability in the region is thus undermined by various factors : (1) asymmetric interests in the bargaining
framework that can introduce unpredictable behavior from actors; (2) the presence of non-state actors that
introduce unpredictability into relationships between the antagonists; (3) incompatible assumptions about the
structure of the deterrent relationship that makes the bargaining framework strategically unstable; (4) perceptions by
Israel and the United States that its window of opportunity for military action is closing, which could prompt a
preventive attack; (5) the prospect that Iran’s response to pre-emptive attacks could involve unconventional weapons,
which could prompt escalation by Israel and/or the United States; (6) the lack of a communications framework to
build trust and cooperation among framework participants.
These systemic weaknesses in the coercive bargaining framework all suggest that escalation by any the parties could
happen either on purpose or as a result of miscalculation or the pressures of wartime circumstance. Given these
factors, it is disturbingly easy to imagine scenarios under which a conflict could quickly escalate in which the
regional antagonists would consider the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons .
It would be a mistake to believe the nuclear taboo can somehow magically keep nuclear weapons from being used in
the context of an unstable strategic framework. Systemic asymmetries between actors in fact suggest a certain
increase in the probability of war – a war in which escalation could happen quickly and from a variety of participants.
Once such a war starts, events would likely develop a momentum all their own and decision-making would
consequently be shaped in unpredictable ways.
The international community must take this possibility seriously , and muster every tool at its disposal to prevent
such an outcome, which would be an unprecedented disaster for the peoples of the region, with substantial risk for
the entire world .
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2AC — No Middle East Focus — Asia Pivot (1/1)
Obama has shifted to an Asian focus — Middle East isn’t a priority.
Gerges 13 — Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of
Economics and Political Science, Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and inaugural Director of
the LSE Middle East Centre, Ph.D. from Oxford University, M.S. from the London School of Economics, former professor
of Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence (“The Obama approach to the Middle East: the
end of America’s moment?” International Affairs, 89:2, 2013, pp. 299–323, Available Online:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2013/89_2/89_2Gerges.pdf,
Accessed: 08/08/2013)
Third, despite Obama’s lofty rhetoric about a new start in relations between the United States and Muslim countries,
the Middle East does not rank very high on his agenda. Putting America’s fiscal house in order and renewing its longterm economic strength were Obama’s priorities in his first term. That meant reducing the nation’s commitments
abroad, especially in the Middle East , where they had extended beyond vital national interests. From the start of his
presidency, Obama has been shifting US foreign policy priorities away from the Middle East to the Pacific region and
Asia , where he and his aides believe that America’s future lies.
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2AC — US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital (1/1)
US won’t spend capital in the Middle East.
Young 13 — Michael Young, opinion editor of The Daily Star (Beirut) (“Ex-Obama officials lament US president's lack of
Middle East policy, The National, July 20, 2013, Available Online: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/exobama-officials-lament-us-presidents-lack-of-middle-east-policy#ixzz2bPaoCRqU, Accessed: 08/08/2013)
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook
Obama's withdrawal from the Middle East has, in its own way, been revolutionary, the product of a view that the US
cannot behave as it once did in the region. Too often this outlook has been confused with American decline. It is
something else: a result of a growing realisation that America's problems cannot be resolved militarily, an attitude that
prevailed during the last decade when American military power was frequently deployed with success. But this brings
out a contradiction in Obama's stance. He has long been sceptical of America's engagement in overseas wars. One of
his first acts was to accelerate the pullout from Iraq. He is winding down American involvement in Afghanistan. Yet
these processes were not accompanied by greater reliance on diplomacy . On most major issues in the Middle East,
the president has refused to expend political capital or engage himself personally. Instead, he has resorted to the
least costly of tactics, namely assassination, usually by relying on drones.
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2AC — US Can’t Influence the Middle East (1/1)
No US influence in the Middle East — Arab Spring and Iraq prove.
Gerges 13 — Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of
Economics and Political Science, Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and inaugural Director of
the LSE Middle East Centre, Ph.D. from Oxford University, M.S. from the London School of Economics, former professor
of Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence (“The Obama approach to the Middle East: the
end of America’s moment?” International Affairs, 89:2, 2013, pp. 299–323, Available Online:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2013/89_2/89_2Gerges.pdf,
Accessed: 08/08/2013)
Obama has attempted to mend the widening rift between America and the Middle East and recalibrate relations. The
Arab revolts have forced him to become more engaged in the area. As a realist, non-ideological president, his central
goal is to minimize the damage to vital American interests and manage the transition. But the writing is on the wall .
America might be reaching the end of its moment in the region, the end of its hegemonic control. Pro-US Arab clients
have fallen like ripe fruit in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, and others are teetering on the brink of collapse. With the rise
of an awakened Arab opinion, the US faces an uncertain world, a world whose rules differ dramatically from the old
ones. It is doubtful if the United States can impose its control in this new world as it did after the end of the Cold War.
For example, in Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki could not provide legal immunity to US troops so as to enable the
Obama administration to keep a sizeable contingent in the country. Iraqi public opinion turned against the US military
presence, so that Obama had no choice but to withdraw all uniformed forces from the country, putting an end to a
venture that has been costly in both blood and treasure. Similarly, even the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
decided to go to the United Nations and seek recognition for a state against US wishes and despite overwhelming
pressure (and even threats) from the Obama administration. The United States is no longer seen as omnipotent; and
the Arab uprisings will most likely weaken American influence further.
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2AC — Diplomacy is Not Zero Sum (1/1)
No “zero sum” link — the U.S. can successfully manage short-term Middle East crises without
sacrificing long-term Latin American interests.
Kilman 11 — Daniel Kilman, Visiting Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, former Japan Policy Fellow at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Adjunct Research Associate with the Institute for Defense
Analyses, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, 2011 (“Obama's geopolitical juggling act,” CNN Opinion, March 23rd,
Available Online at http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/22/kliman.libya.obama/index.html, Accessed 08-10-2013)
So far, the Obama administration has successfully navigated the delicate balance between the urgency of the now
and the necessity of pursuing long-term strategic priorities .
Obama could have canceled his Latin American trip to remain in Washington while the Libyan bombing campaign
commenced. Instead , braving criticism at home, he embarked on a tour amounting to a long-term investment in
America's geopolitical position .
The United States has historically overlooked Latin America. Yet today, the region constitutes a market nearly as large as
China's, boasts an influential rising power in Brazil and hosts dangerous criminal insurgencies that respect no borders.
Whatever U.S. interests exist in Libya -- there is room for reasonable debate -- the country does not outweigh the rest of
the Western Hemisphere.
The past months have underscored that nearly perpetual crises may be a fact of international life in the early 21st
century. The United States has been whipsawed by the revolutionary upheaval in Egypt, a natural catastrophe in
Japan and now the faltering uprising in Libya.
America cannot ignore urgent events , but neither can it afford to neglect long-term strategic priorities .
In an era where the United States can no longer easily mobilize the world behind a cause, but no other actors are
willing or capable of picking up the slack, American leaders must be careful not to get entrapped by good intentions.
The Obama administration is walking a fine line .
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2AC — State Department Diplomacy Fails (1/1)
Diplomacy fails — modern threats evade diplomatic approach.
Miller 10 — Aaron David Miller, public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (“The
End of Diplomacy?,” Foreign Policy, February 3, 2010, Available Online:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/03/the_end_of_diplomacy?page=full,0, Accessed: 08/07/2013)
Back in the day, there was a time when American diplomacy did big and important things.
No more , it seems. The world's gotten complicated, America is a good deal weaker, and the U.S. administration is
handicapping itself with a dysfunctional bureaucratic setup that makes it harder to focus and find its footing.
Effective American diplomacy may well be going the way of the dodo, and the sad fact is there may be little Barack
Obama can do about it.
Lamenting the absence of great men years before his own shining moment, Winston Churchill wrote that in England,
once upon a time, "there were wonderful giants of old." There's always a danger in idealizing what once was or seemed
to be in order to make a point about the present. Still, looking back over the last 60 years, you really do have to wonder
whether America's best diplomacy and foreign policy are behind it.
America never ran the world (an illusion the left, right, and much of the third and fourth worlds believe; but there were
moments (1945-1950, the early 1970s, 1988-1991) when the United States marshaled its military, political, and
economic power toward impressive ends.
There were, or course, disasters and plenty of dysfunction during these years, including the Vietnam War and out-ofcontrol CIA operations. But there were also brilliant achievements: the Marshall Plan, NATO, effective Arab-Israeli
diplomacy, détente with the Russians, opening to China, a competent American role in the acceleration and
management of the end of the Cold War, and the first Gulf War.
For most of the last 16 years, however -- under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- America has been in a diplomatic
dry patch . In the face of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, wars of choice, and nasty regional conflicts, conventional
diplomacy has either not been tried or not been very successful. The image of the shuttling secretary of state preempting crises or exploiting them to broker agreements, doggedly pursuing Middle East peace, achieving dramatic
breakthroughs with spectacular secret diplomacy seems a world away.
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2AC — No Mid-East War (1/1)
Middle East war is extremely unlikely — common interests ensure stability and prevent escalation.
Fettweis 7 — Christopher J. Fettweis, Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs in the National Security Decision
Making Department of the U.S. Naval War College, holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Comparative Politics from
the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland-College Park, 2007 (“On the Consequences of
Failure in Iraq,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Volume 49, Issue 4, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via
Taylor & Francis Online)
Wider war
No matter what the outcome in Iraq, the region is not likely to devolve into chaos . Although it might seem counter-intuitive, by
most traditional measures the Middle East is very stable . Continuous, uninterrupted governance is the norm , not
the exception; most Middle East regimes have been in power for decades . Its monarchies, from Morocco to Jordan to every Gulf state,
have generally been in power since these countries gained independence. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak has ruled for almost three decades, and Muammar Gadhafi in
Libya for almost four. The region's autocrats have been more likely to die quiet, natural deaths than meet the hangman or post-coup firing squads. Saddam's rather
unpredictable regime, which attacked its neighbours twice, was one of the few exceptions to this pattern of stability, and he met an end unusual for the modern
Middle East. Its regimes
have survived potentially destabilising shocks before , and they would be likely to do so again .
The region actually experiences very little cross-border warfare , and even less since the end of the Cold War. Saddam
again provided an exception, as did the Israelis, with their adventures in Lebanon. Israel fought four wars with neighbouring states in the first 25 years of its
existence, but none in the 34 years since. Vicious civil wars that once engulfed Lebanon and Algeria have gone quiet, and its ethnic conflicts do not make the region
particularly unique.
The biggest risk of an American withdrawal is intensified civil war in Iraq rather than regional conflagration. Iraq's neighbours will likely not prove eager to fight each
other to determine who gets to be the next country to spend itself into penury propping up an unpopular puppet regime next door. As much as the Saudis and
Iranians may threaten to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists, they have shown no eagerness to replace the counter-insurgency role that American troops play
today. If the United States, with its remarkable military and unlimited resources, could not bring about its desired solutions in Iraq, why would any other country think
it could do so?17
Common interest , not the presence of the US military, provides the ultimate foundation for stability. All ruling regimes in the
Middle East share a common (and understandable) fear of instability . It is the interest of every actor – the Iraqis, their neighbours and
the rest of the world – to see a stable, functioning government emerge in Iraq. If the United States were to withdraw, increased regional cooperation to address that
common interest is far more likely than outright warfare.
Even a Turkish invasion of the north is hardly inevitable. Withdrawal from Iraq would, after all, hardly rob the United States of all its tools with which to influence
events. Washington and the rest of NATO still wield significant influence over Ankara; a cross-border invasion would almost certainly doom Turkey's prospects of
entering the European Union. It is puzzling why anyone would think that no incentive structure could be devised to convince Turkey not to attack its neighbour.
Should such an assault prove undeterrable, it is not clear that intervention would be in the strategic interest of the United States. One of the worst suggestions that
occasionally surfaces in the withdrawal debate is that the United States should ‘redeploy’ troops to Kurdistan in northern Iraq, in order to ‘deter’ Turkey and reward
its Kurdish allies.18 Such a move would allow a continuation of what amounts to state-sponsored terrorism, and risk embroiling the United States in yet another local,
intractable conflict. The removal of de facto US protection would presumably encourage the Kurds to act more responsibly toward their more powerful neighbours,
and may well prove to be good for stability. Clearly, elements in Kurdistan actively support Kurdistan Workers' Party terrorists in Turkey, but that would change if they
faced the possibility of paying a price for their behaviour.
A regional descent into the whirlwind following a US withdrawal cannot be ruled out; using that logic, neither can benevolent transitions to democracy. Just
because a scenario is imaginable does not make it likely . In fact, most of the chaotic outcomes pessimists predict
require unprecedented breaks with the past . Since the United States has historically overestimated the threats it faces,
there is every reason to believe that it is doing so again .
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Extend: “No Middle East Focus — Asia Pivot” (1/2)
Obama turning away from Middle East — new focus on Asia.
NYT 13 — Byline John Harwood, NYT Staffwriter (“History Says Obama, in Second Term, Has Time Yet to Make Impact,”
New York Times, July 12, 2013, Available Online: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/us/obama-second-termscorecard-in-a-historical-light.html, Accessed: 08/09/2013)
But foreign policy, a natural palliative for legislative blues, offers the commander-in-chief other outlets. Reagan signed
a major arms control treaty with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, and Mr. Clinton
shepherded a peace deal in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Obama is disengaging the United States from long, unpopular wars in the Middle East — and resisting
Congressional pressure for greater American intervention in Syria — while elevating engagement with China and
other Asian nations .
US diplomatic focus is China — Kerry will spend diplomatic capital there.
Fiscal Times 13 — Byline Josh Boak, The Fiscal Times (“John Kerry’s China Problem: How Tough Can He Get?,” The
Fiscal Times, January 29, 2013, Available Online: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/01/29/John-KerrysChina-Problem-How-Tough-Can-He-Get.aspx#page1, Accessed: 08/07/2013)
John Kerry is one step closer to becoming Secretary of State and managing the United States’ economic ‘frenemy’ — China.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved Kerry’s nomination on Tuesday, and this afternoon the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 94-3.
Getting approval wasn’t much of a heavy lift for Kerry, who has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1985 and just so happens to be chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee.
“More than ever, foreign policy is economic policy,” Kerry told the committee. The Democrat added
that his goal , and presumably that of his future boss
President Obama, was to strengthen the relationship with China, even if that means some occasional bits of friction.
"China is, you know, the other sort of significant economy in the world and obviously has a voracious appetite for resources around the world, and we need to
establish rules of the road that work for everybody," Kerry said.
The U.S. has a unique dependency on China and vice-versa. For the first 11 months of last year, China exported $390 billion worth of clothing, electronics, and other
services to the United States. We’re the customer that fuels their growth and their appetite for natural resources such as rare earth metals, coal, and oil.
But China also controls $1.15 trillion in U.S. government debt. That’s a smidge under 10 percent of all publicly held debt, most of which is still owned by Americans.
However, the Chinese government is able to exercise economic muscles in ways that individual American consumers cannot.
There are also charges by the Obama administration that China violated trade pacts on auto parts and other goods. Not to mention the perennial questions of
currency manipulation, environmental destruction, and copyright piracy.
In other words, a lot of businesses will depend on how Kerry pursues this relationship. Here will be the first few challenges that he tackles with the world’s second
biggest economy:
Are we headed into a trade war? The anxieties are definitely rising after the last year, when Obama took on China for dumping solar panels on our shore and the
presidential election was filled with heated rhetoric about American jobs being stolen.
American carmakers are already part of the collateral damage. “The U.S. has launched investigations, continued existing duties, and filed complaints at the World
Trade Organization, on a number of other Chinese products as well over the past year,” the D.C.-based lobbying shop ML Strategies wrote in its 2013 outlook. “In
response, China has taken similar actions on American products, most notably certain automobiles imported from the U.S. The
coming year will likely see
a continuation of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.”
Will there be a battle over island territory? The World Economic Forum, the Swiss nonprofit that sponsors “Davos,” warns that China and Japan
could be headed for a naval confrontation over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Never heard of these five islands and three rocks in the Pacific Ocean? It’s a major headache for Kerry . He might have
to defuse the nationalist tensions of both countries, spending diplomatic capital on security issues instead of
economic ones. After all, the United States briefly had control of these islands after World War II and gave them to the
Japanese in 1972, the same year China and Taiwan claimed ownership.
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Extend: “No Middle East Focus — Asia Pivot” (2/2)
No Middle East Focus — Obama has pivoted to Asia.
Gerges 13 — Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of
Economics and Political Science, Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and inaugural Director of
the LSE Middle East Centre, Ph.D. from Oxford University, M.S. from the London School of Economics, former professor
of Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence (“The Obama approach to the Middle East: the
end of America’s moment?” International Affairs, 89:2, 2013, pp. 299–323, Available Online:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2013/89_2/89_2Gerges.pdf,
Accessed: 08/08/2013)
The Obama administration’s approach in the Middle East reflects a vacuum in global leadership, a vacuum that is
weakening the ability of post-autocratic governments to overcome the structural economic and institutional challenges
that they have inherited from autocratic rulers. This leadership vacuum stems from the fact that the Middle East does
not top Obama’s foreign policy agenda.
The Obama administration has shied away from taking a leadership role in the non-oil-producing Arab countries,
because of the failed interventionist record of George W. Bush and because its own key foreign policy priorities lie in
Asia.
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Extend: “US Won’t Spend Diplomatic Capital” (1/1)
Middle East not a priority for Obama — he wants to keep a distance.
Gerges 13 — Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of
Economics and Political Science, Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and inaugural Director of
the LSE Middle East Centre, Ph.D. from Oxford University, M.S. from the London School of Economics, former professor
of Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence (“The Obama approach to the Middle East: the
end of America’s moment?” International Affairs, 89:2, 2013, pp. 299–323, Available Online:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2013/89_2/89_2Gerges.pdf,
Accessed: 08/08/2013)
In contrast to his conservative opponents, Obama and his aides had a vivid sense of American decline relative to the
new rising powers and wanted to rebalance foreign policy priorities away from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean
and Asia. Despite Obama’s lofty rhetoric about a new start in relations between the United States and Muslim countries,
the region did not rank very high on his agenda. Putting America’s fiscal house in order and renewing its long-term
economic strength were Obama’s priorities. That meant reducing the nation’s commitments abroad, especially in the
Middle East, where they have extended beyond vital national interests.
In a joint television interview with Obama and Hillary Clinton to mark her exit from the State Department in January
2013, Clinton relates what Obama said when he offered her the highest position in his cabinet. ‘Obama basically said,
“You know, we’ve got this major economic crisis that may push us into a depression. I’m not going to be able to do a lot
to satisfy the built-up expectations for our role around the world. So you’re going to have to get out there and, you
know, really represent us while I deal with, you know, the economic catastrophe I inherited.’16 Clinton’s insight is
revealing because it shows that from the outset of his presidential term, Obama’s priorities were domestic, and
primarily economic. Foreign affairs, including the Middle East, did not rank high on his agenda. It is no wonder, then,
that when faced with challenges in the Middle East, Obama has more often than not cut his losses and refrained
from deepening US involvement there. In case after case, Obama has shown an inclination to keep a distance from
the region’s social and political turmoil and raging conflicts, a choice that is consistent with his world-view and
priorities.
Obama won’t spend capital on Middle East peace — too much of a long shot.
Palmer 13 — Crispian Palmer, Reuters Staffwriter (“5 Issues to Watch When Obama Visits Middle East,” Fiscal Times,
March 19, 2013, Available Online: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/03/19/5-Issues-to-Watch-WhenObama-Visits-Middle-East.aspx#E8OBQLbebqRVbdb8.99, Accessed: 08/09/2013)
Both the Palestinians and Israelis felt let down by Obama, for very different reasons. The Israelis begrudged the fact
that at the start of his first term, he publicly told Israel to halt all Jewish settlement building, saying this put unfair
pressure on Netanyahu to make unilateral concessions.
The Palestinians were furious when Obama then backed away from his demand over settlement construction, saying the
peace talks were doomed unless Washington twisted Israel's arm. Both sides say that without a serious U.S.
engagement, the chances of a deal are close to zero. However, few U.S. analysts expect Obama to expend much
political capital on an elusive peace accord that has tied up so many of his predecessors.
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Extend: “US Can’t Influence the Middle East” (1/1)
US Middle East influence lowest in decades — domestic politics and Arab Spring.
Freilich 13 — Chuck Freilich, senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School, former deputy national security advisor in
Israel (“Proceed With Caution: President Obama Needs to Step Lightly on Mideast Peace,” The American Interest, March
13, 2013, Available Online: http://the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1395#sthash.jWvjqWPJ.dpuf, Accessed:
07/26/2013)
Many believe that the contours of an agreement are known and that the two sides were actually close to one in the
past. Indeed, premiers Barak and Olmert presented proposals calling for a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and virtually all
of the West Bank, with a small land swap, and the division of Jerusalem. In all areas, except the return of refugees, Israel
made dramatic concessions. It turned out, however, that what Israel and the United States considered to be about the
maximum Israel could offer fell below the Palestinian minimum. There is no reason to believe that this has changed.
Moreover, American influence in the region is at a decades-long nadir and the United States is preoccupied with
formidable domestic challenges . Europe is in even worse shape, and the newest iteration of the historic Arab
Awakening continues to rock the region. As important as Israeli-Palestinian peace is, the pressing issues in 2013 are
the events in the Arab countries and Iran. The mantra, that Israeli-Palestinian peace is essential to address the
region's other ills, which never held more than a kernel of truth, sounds even more off key today.
US influence fails in the Middle East — corrupt regimes and internal politics weaken US leadership.
Miller 10 — Aaron David Miller, public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (“The
End of Diplomacy?,” Foreign Policy, February 3, 2010, Available Online:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/03/the_end_of_diplomacy?page=full,0, Accessed: 08/07/2013)
The Obama administration wants to do this kind of stuff. And it has done pretty well in managing the big relationships
with Russia and Europe, though it has had its share of problems with China. But frankly, these are the easy ones. It's not
from the big that the president's problems come; it's from the small.
In garden spots like Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, the problems are four parts military, five parts
nation-building, and maybe one part diplomacy. And America is unlikely to prevail in any meaningful sense of the
word where corrupt, extractive regimes are unable to control their own territory and cut deals with anti-American
elements and place their security and political concerns first.
Even in areas where diplomacy might seem to work on paper -- Kashmir, Arab-Israeli peacemaking -- the United
States is hampered by conflicts driven by deep ethnic and religious hostility and by internal politics in which its own
allies (Israel, Pakistan, and India) can't be of much help. And in one of the cruelest ironies of all, the U.S. president who
has gone further to engage Iran than any of his predecessors is watching any hope for diplomacy being ground up by a
regime under siege in Tehran.
What's more, the power of the small is being matched by the weakening of the big. You don't have to be a declinist
(I'm not) to see how far the image of American power has fallen. Forget the economic meltdown, which has much of
the world wondering about what kind of great power the United States really is. America's currently fighting two wars
where the standard for victory is not whether it can win but when it can leave.
Whether it's an inability to get tough sanctions from the international community against Iran, bring Tehran to heel,
make North Korea play ball, get the Arabs and the Israelis to cooperate, or push the Pakistanis to hit the Taliban and al
Qaeda in a sustained way, the world has gotten used to saying no to America without cost or consequence. And
that's very bad for a great power.
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Extend: “Diplomacy is Not Zero Sum” (1/1)
Foreign policy focus isn’t zero sum — U.S. involvement is needed in all regions.
Kagan 12 — Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in Foreign Policy at the
Brookings Institution, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, served on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Foreign
Affairs Policy Board Columnist for the Washington Post, co-founded the Project for the New American Century, holds a
Master in Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in
American History from American University, 2012 (“United States can’t pivot away from Middle East,” Washington Post,
November 20th, Available Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-kagan-us-cant-ignore-the-middleeast/2012/11/20/a2b4ede0-3331-11e2-bfd5-e202b6d7b501_story.html, Accessed 08-10-2013)
The irony, of course, is that every time the Obama administration tries to turn toward Asia, the Middle East drags it
back — literally, in the case of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It’s an illusion to think we will not continue to be
drawn into Middle East affairs. The world is no longer neatly divided by distinct regions, if it ever was. Events in the
Middle East affect the world, just as events in Asia do. Wherever the United States gets its oil, global energy prices are
affected by whether oil flows freely from the Middle East, and U.S. allies in Europe and Asia still depend on that as a
main source. If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it will affect not just the Middle East but the global non-proliferation
regime. The success or failure of the experiment to marry Islamism and democracy that is playing out in Egypt, Tunisia
and elsewhere will affect politics across the Islamic world, from Morocco to Pakistan to Southeast Asia as well as in
Europe. And if Syria collapses, the chances are high that well-armed terrorist groups will gain a foothold in a nation with
the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpiles.
The present world order is seamless , and so is the global strategy necessary to sustain it. As one prominent
statesman expressed the general puzzlement here, “Can’t the United States walk and chew gum at the same time ?”
For decades the United States has been able to provide security and remain engaged in three major theaters at once :
Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Today those theaters are more interconnected, economically and strategically,
than ever .
So let’s by all means give Asia the attention it deserves. But the world won’t afford us the luxury of downgrading the
importance of the other two regions. That’s what it means to be a global superpower: We can pivot, but we can’t
leave .
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Extend: “State Department Diplomacy Fails” (1/1)
State department diplomacy fails — budget cuts and staff shortages.
Glain 11 — Stephen Glain, 20 years experience as a foreign correspondent in Europe, Asia and the Middle East for the
South China Morning Post, Wall Street Journal and others (“How we became a nation of warriors,” Salon, July 31, 2013,
Available Online: http://www.salon.com/2011/07/31/state_vs_defense_stephen_glain_excerpt/, Accessed:
08/07/2013)
Quietly, gradually — and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ — the Pentagon has all
but eclipsed the State Department at the center of U.S. foreign policy. The process began just over a century ago,
gathered pace with World War II, and hit its stride during the Cold War with a global empire that not only survived the
collapse of the Soviet Union but was greatly enhanced by it. Even before terrorists struck the nation on September 11,
America was spring-loaded for conflict on many fronts. A decade later, U.S. troops are engaged in the country’s longest
war in addition to counterinsurgency and developmental assistance work throughout the world. At the same time, the
capability of the nation’s diplomatic and foreign aid agencies has dramatically diminished . While four-star generals
wield enormous influence among U.S. allies, ambassadors and senior USAID officials are regarded more and more as
functionaries and contractors. They are saddled with chronic staff shortages, eroded language skills, and low morale.
In an era of endless war, a growing share of diplomats and aid workers are assigned to missions in areas so hazardous
they require armed escorts when traveling. And unlike their uniformed counterparts, they lack replacement staff for
regular rotations. In the increasingly tight competition for humanitarian and development funds, they are losing out to
the Pentagon, now the federal government’s fastest-growing source of foreign aid.
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GFCA Packet
2013-2014
Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage
41
Extend: “No Mid-East War” (1/2)
No big impact to Middle East instability — escalation is empirically denied.
Luttwak 7 — Edward N. Luttwak, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, former
consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S.
Army, Navy, and Air Force, and a number of allied governments as well as international corporations and financial
institutions, holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, 2007 (“It’s Best To Ignore The Middle East,” National Post,
June 26th, Available Online at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=bdb57dd1-70ad-4133-9079750c7fdce274&p=5, Accessed 08-10-2013)
Why are Middle East experts so unfailingly wrong? The lesson of history is that men never learn from history, but Middle East experts,
like the rest of us, should at least learn from their past mistakes. Instead, they just keep repeating them .
The first mistake is " five minutes to midnight " catastrophism. The late King Hussein of Jordan was the undisputed
master of this genre. Wearing his gravest aspect, he would warn us that with patience finally exhausted the Arab-Israeli
conflict was about to explode, that all past conflicts would be dwarfed by what was about to happen unless, unless?
And then came the remedy – usually something rather tame when compared with the immense catastrophe
predicted, such as resuming this or that stalled negotiation, or getting an American envoy to the scene to make the
usual promises to the Palestinians and apply the usual pressures on Israel.
What actually happens at each of these "moments of truth" -- and we may be approaching another one -- is nothing much ; only
the same old cyclical conflict which always restarts when peace is about to break out, and always dampens down
when the violence becomes intense enough. The ease of filming and reporting out of safe and comfortable Israeli hotels inflates the media coverage
of every minor affray. But humanitarians should note that the dead from Jewish-Palestinian fighting since 1921 amount to fewer than
100,000 – about as many as are killed in a season of conflict in Darfur.
Strategically, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been almost irrelevant since the end of the Cold War. As for the impact of the
conflict on oil prices, it was powerful in 1973 when the Saudis declared embargoes and cut production, but that was the first and last time that the "oil weapon" was
wielded. For decades now, the largest Arab oil producers have publicly foresworn any linkage between politics and pricing, for the excellent reason that an embargo
would be disastrous for their oil-revenue dependent economies. In any case, the relationship between turmoil in the Middle East and oil prices is far from
straightforward. As Philip Auerswald recently noted in the American Interest, between 1981 and 1999 -- a period when a fundamentalist regime consolidated power
in Iran, Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war within view of oil and gas installations, the Gulf War came and went and the first Palestinian intifada raged -- oil prices,
adjusted for inflation, actually fell.
Moreover, geopolitical engagement in the region does nothing to safeguard the supply of oil. Yes oil is important but it seems that production is much smoother
when it is left alone by both diplomacy and war. The U.S. is certainly heavily engaged in Iraq but that has not exactly increased the country's oil production -- at least
two million barrels a day are lost because of the sabotage of well-heads, collectors, separation units and pipelines. Another two million barrels a day are lost because
of the diplomatic isolation of Iran's government and its resulting reliance on local incompetents instead of Western oil-service companies. Those missing four million
barrels a day would make all the difference to oil prices , because oil demand is very inelastic and it would be enough to have 86 million barrels a day of world-wide
production instead of 82 to lower prices very sharply, all the way from US$60 plus to US$30 minus.
Besides, while attention is obsessively focused on the Middle East, oil supplies are more immediately threatened these days by political thievery in Nigeria, illiterate
oil populism in Venezuela and Russia's kleptocratic oil nationalism, all of which reduce both current production and the installation of future capacity.
Yes, it would be nice if Israelis and Palestinians could settle their differences, but it would do little or nothing to calm
the other conflicts in the Middle East from Algeria to Iraq, or to stop Muslim-Hindu violence in Kashmir, Muslim-Christian violence in
Indonesia and the Philippines, Muslim-Buddhist violence in Thailand, Muslim-animist violence in Sudan, Muslim-Igbo violence in Nigeria,
Muslim-Muscovite violence in Chechnya, or the different varieties of inter-Muslim violence between traditionalists and Islamists, and between Sunnis
and Shiites, nor would it assuage the perfectly understandable hostility of convinced Islamists towards the transgressive west that relentlessly invades their minds,
and sometimes their countries.
Arab-Israeli catastrophism is wrong twice over, first because the conflict is contained within rather narrow
boundaries , and second because the Levant is just not that important any more .
* Levant = a geographical area that consists today of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and parts of
southern Turkey. Iraq and the Sinai Peninsula are also sometimes included. (Wikipedia)
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GFCA Packet
2013-2014
Diplomatic Capital Disadvantage
42
Extend: “No Mid-East War” (2/2)
Even if war breaks out, it won’t escalate — empirically proven.
Cook et al. 7 — Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations, former Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Soref Research Fellow at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, holds an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, et al., with Ray Takeyh,
Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, former Senior Advisor on Iran at the
Department of State, former Fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, holds a Doctorate in Modern History
from Oxford University, and Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings
Institution, holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, 2007 (“Why the Iraq war
won't engulf the Mideast,” New York Times, June 28th, Available Online at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/opinion/28iht-edtakeyh.1.6383265.html, Accessed 08-10-2013)
The Middle East is a region both prone and accustomed to civil wars. But given its experience with ambiguous
conflicts, the region has also developed an intuitive ability to contain its civil strife and prevent local conflicts from
enveloping the entire Middle East .
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