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Tag: Brent Scowcroft

  • Obama adviser urges talks with Hamas

    Obama adviser urges talks with Hamas

    Paul Volcker, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, has urged him to break with US policy and open talks with Hamas in order to test the militant group’s willingness to join a unified Palestinian government.

    By Alex Spillius in Washington
    Last Updated: 4:19PM GMT 15 Mar 2009

    Paul Volcker has urged talks with Hamas

    Mr Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who was picked by the president to head his new economic recovery advisory board, signed a letter with nine other Washington veterans and senior ex-officials urging him to open dialogue.

    Other signatories of the letter, delivered to the president days before he took office, include Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first George Bush, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who performed the same role under Jimmy Carter.

    The group is expected to be granted an audience at the White House as early as this week to make their case that lines of communication should be opened with the group that is blacklisted as a terrorist organization and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

    They are likely to make a forceful case given their personal experience of tortuous Middle East negotiations. “I see no reason not to talk to Hamas,” Mr Scowcroft told the Boston Globe. “The main gist is that you need to push hard on the Palestinian peace process. Don’t move it to end of your agenda and say you have too much to do.”

    Mr Obama has made peace in the Middle East a central goal of his presidency. Within days of taking office he appointed former senator George Mitchell, a heavy-hitting veteran of the Northern Ireland peace process, as a special envoy to the region.

    Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, made an early trip to the Middle East and swiftly held out an olive branch to Iran-backed Syria, sending in senior diplomats for talks.

    Some in Washington see a rare opportunity to open talks with Hamas now that the group is discussing a unity government with Fatah, the more moderate Palestinian faction. Hamas was elected to power in Gaza in 2007 and has been shunned by the US for its refusal to renounce violence or recognize Israel’s legitimacy.

    Source:  www.telegraph.co.uk, 15 Mar 2009

  • What exactly does “Renewing the U.S.-U.N. relationship” mean?

    What exactly does “Renewing the U.S.-U.N. relationship” mean?

    The New Republic Blog, 24.11.2008

    At the core of the international liberal elites is a hollow.  Nothing confirms this so much as an advertisement published in Thursday’s New York Times that costs anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 depending on the ideological proximity of the sponsors to the editorial positions of the paper.  Now, I don’t really know how much cash was transferred to the Times for printing this hokey pronouncement. But I bet it wasn’t anywheres near top rate.  In any case, the statement and its signatories were put together by the Partnership For A Secure America (whatever that means or is) and the United Nations Foundation, which was founded by that profound thinker Ted Turner who is also one of the endorsers of the manifesto.

    The principles of “We Agree: Renew the U.S.-UN Relationship” are not exactly dangerous.  But they aren’t anodyne either. Instead, they are portentous in the sense that the document presumes to address significant issues while what it actually does is simply assert high-minded attitudes. But they are high-minded attitudes altogether out of context.  And worse: in utterly distorted context.  All addressed to the United States and, at least inferentially, to Barack Obama.

    Here, actually, is one of its nine points that is utterly banal: “Place well-qualified Americans in open positions at the UN.” Still, there is some ambiguity in its meaning?  Does it mean in all positions on the U.S. representation to the organization?  Or for the United Nations positions reserved for the American quota?  Maybe both.  Anyway, what do the signatories presume?  That President-elect Obama, Secretary-designate Clinton and Ambassador-presumptive Susan Rice (a person I suspect I’ve under-rated or maybe over-blamed in the past) are going to place ill-qualified Americans in these positions?

    Here’s one that’s totally out of context: “Help the growing workload assigned to UN peacekeeping by providing logistical and management expertise and support needed to enhance UN capacities.” Being about the UN, the command is quite naturally built on gobbledygook.  But it insinuates a falsehood, and that is that it is the U.S., rather than, say, China and Russia, that cripple U.N. peacekeeping.

    Here’s my favorite that assumes fixability of one of the U.N. organs, the Human Rights Council, but one that is simply unfixable.  “Obtain a seat on the faltering Human Rights Council and work to influence it from within.” This assumes that the United States had not expended energy, thought, resources and diplomatic capital on taking the Human Rights Council (and, before that, the Human Rights Commission) from the absolute control of the worst abridgers and aborters of freedoms in the international arena.  The fact is that the U.N. is dominated by countries which themselves are traducers of human rights or by countries that really don’t care a fig about violations of liberties unless, of course, they can attribute somehow them to Israel.  The Council is actually a council on Israel.  Nothing more, nothing less.  America has little sway with the two of the five permanent members of the Security Council or with many of the 150-off governments in the General Assembly which are in New York as a vacation from home.

    Please take a look at this innocent-sounding but pernicious document.

    Which names other than Ted Turner are affixed to this document?  There are 38 including the excitable Mme. Albright, General Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Lee Hamilton who is the axiomatic co-chairman of any national bi-partisan commission that is set up for any reason or excuse.  Also Sandy Berger who, though unable to heed the simplest rules of national security, still purports to tell the city and the world what to do.  Rita Hauser, well, too angry, too pathetic and too unknown to characterize.  And Gary Hart who managed George McGovern’s 1972 campaign, still has McGovern’s politics and once ran for the Democratic nomination for president from which running he escaped when caught doing “monkee business.”  Almost all of these eminences are aged.  Their ideas might have made some sense when the United Nations was founded six decades ago in Flushing Meadows, Lake Success, New York.

    Posted: Monday, November 24, 2008 10:15 A

    Source: blogs.tnr.com

  • Middle East Priorities For Jan. 21

    Middle East Priorities For Jan. 21

    By Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski

    Friday, November 21, 2008; Page A23

    The election of Barack Obama to be the 44th president is profoundly historic. We have at long last been able to come together in a way that has eluded us in the long history of our great country. We should celebrate this triumph of the true spirit of America.

    Election Day celebrations were replicated in time zones around the world, something we have not seen in a long time. While euphoria is ephemeral, we must endeavor to use its energy to bring us all together as Americans to cope with the urgent problems that beset us.

    When Obama takes office in two months, he will find a number of difficult foreign policy issues competing for his attention, each with strong advocates among his advisers. We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention.

    In perhaps no other region was the election of Obama more favorably received than the Middle East. Immediate attention to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would help cement the goodwill that Obama’s election engendered. Not everyone in the Middle East views the Palestinian issue as the greatest regional challenge, but the deep sense of injustice it stimulates is genuine and pervasive.

    Unfortunately, the current administration’s intense efforts over the past year will not resolve the issue by Jan. 20. But to let attention lapse would reinforce the feelings of injustice and neglect in the region. That could spur another eruption of violence between the warring parties or in places such as Lebanon or Gaza, reversing what progress has been made and sending the parties back to square one. Lurking in the background is the possibility that the quest for a two-state solution may be abandoned by the Palestinians, the Israelis, or both — with unfortunate consequences for all.

    Resolution of the Palestinian issue would have a positive impact on the region. It would liberate Arab governments to support U.S. leadership in dealing with regional problems, as they did before the Iraq invasion. It would dissipate much of the appeal of Hezbollah and Hamas, dependent as it is on the Palestinians’ plight. It would change the region’s psychological climate, putting Iran back on the defensive and putting a stop to its swagger.

    The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.

    Something more might be needed to deal with Israeli security concerns about turning over territory to a Palestinian government incapable of securing Israel against terrorist activity. That could be dealt with by deploying an international peacekeeping force, such as one from NATO, which could not only replace Israeli security but train Palestinian troops to become effective.

    To date, the weakness of the negotiating parties has limited their ability to come to an agreement by themselves. The elections in Israel scheduled for February are certainly a complicating factor, as is the deep split among Palestinians between Fatah and Hamas. But if the peace process begins to gain momentum, it is difficult to imagine that Hamas will want to be left out, and that same momentum would provide the Israeli people a unique chance to register their views on the future of their country.

    This weakness can be overcome by the president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process; he also must press the case with steady determination. That initiative should then be followed — not preceded — by the appointment of a high-level dignitary to pursue the process on the president’s behalf, a process based on the enunciated presidential guidelines. Such a presidential initiative should instantly galvanize support, both domestic and international, and provide great encouragement to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

    To say that achieving a successful resolution of this critical issue is a simple task would be to scoff at history. But in many ways the current situation is such that the opportunity for success has never been greater, or the costs of failure more severe.

    Brent Scowcroft was national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. He is president of the Forum for International Policy and the Scowcroft Group. Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. He is trustee and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The two are authors of “America and The World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy.”

    Source: www.washingtonpost.com, November 21, 2008