What Obama wants from Israel. The row between Washington and Israel is not about the plans for 1,600 apartments. Washington’s goal is to change the composition of the government, says Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic:
I’ve been on the phone with many of the usual suspects (White House and otherwise), and I think it’s fair to say that Obama is not trying to destroy America’s relations with Israel; he’s trying to organize Tzipi Livni’s campaign for prime minister, or at least for her inclusion in a broad-based centrist government. (…) it’s clear to everyone — at the White House, at the State Department, at Goldblog — that no progress will be made on any front if Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Eli Yishai’s fundamentalist Shas Party, remain in Netanyahu’s surpassingly fragile coalition.
So what is the goal? The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni’s centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes. (…) Obama knows that this sort of stable, centrist coalition is the key to success. He would rather, I understand, not have to deal with Netanyahu at all — people near the President say that, for one thing, Obama doesn’t think that Netanyahu is very bright, and there is no chemistry at all between the two men — but he’d rather have a Netanyahu who is being pressured from his left than a Netanyahu who is being pressured from the right.
The Economist reports that there is a second explanation for the US-Israeli row:
One school of thought holds that Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton escalated their reaction to the Biden insult in order to make Mr Netanyahu abandon his rightist allies and tread the American path to peace; some say the president was waiting for a chance to destabilise him to force his replacement by someone more emollient. A rival theory is that there is no plan: Ramat Shlomo simply ignited the rage that has smouldered in Mr Obama’s breast since Mr Netanyahu refused his call last year for a total freeze on settlements, forcing Mr Mitchell to waste nearly a year niggling for a temporary compromise.
No you can’t? Timothy Garton Ash writes about Obama’s foreign policy troubles:
Once upon a time, the world thrilled to the Obama chant of “Yes we can!” Now it seems to be shouting back: “No you can’t!” (…)
The results of Obama’s first year of foreign policy are thin, but it is much too soon to despair. America is never again going to enjoy the position of near-supremacy that it experienced after 1945 and again after 1989 – using it well in the first case and badly in the second. But all the rising great powers have great problems too, not least China. America has its time of troubles now. Theirs will come. The United States will probably emerge from this economic crisis in better shape than Europe. It has power resources which few can match, combining scale, flexibility, enterprise, a capacity to tap the creative energy of immigrants, technological innovation, a popular culture with global reach and, not least, individual liberty. Obama personifies those strengths. (…)
Complex multilateralism will always take longer than mindless unilateralism, but it can be more effective in the end. If some version of healthcare reform goes through and the economy recovers, Obama could win a second term in which to reap the harvest of strategic policy choices. That second term could realise some of the hopes with which the first began.
Ambition for common EU policy on Russia disappearing. Dominque Moisi comments on France’s sale of the warship Mistral to Russia:
France should not delude itself. There is nothing inherently wrong in selling weapons to Russia, but by so doing one merely plays into the hands of Putin’s effort to reinforce his policy of domination over Russia’s “near abroad.” The sale of these warships will not positively affect the balance of power within Russia (between Putin and Medvedev), but it will affect the regional balance of power — in favor of Russia.
What is clear is that any ambition to define a common European energy and security policy toward Russia is slowly disappearing. From Berlin to Paris, and from Paris to Rome, European leaders may ultimately be doing the same thing, but they are all doing it separately, as competitors vying for Russian favor rather than as partners within a supposedly tightknit EU.
A Britisch-French defense alliance in the making? Deutsche Welle reports:
High-level meetings between senior figures in the British and French defense establishments over the past few months have begun to lay the foundations of what could be a new defense alliance between the European Union’s two major military powers. (…)
“France and Britain are being pushed together by a number of challenges, one of them being military budgetary needs,” Anthony Seaboyer, a European and Transatlantic security expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told Deutsche Welle. “The financial crisis has lead to a clear focus on other issues. Other budgetary needs appear to be far more pressing.” (…)
Richard Gowan, an EU security and defense expert at the European Center for Foreign Relations, believes that France could find the kind of strategic partnership with Britain that it has so far been denied in the wider structure of the EU. “French generals and policy-makers have been frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm for really serious military cooperation among other EU members – especially Germany,” Gowan told Deutsche Welle. (…)
Discussions in the past over alliances within the EU or a stronger collective EU defense policy have caused some criticism among those who believe such actions could undermine organizations such as NATO and cause friction with the United States. However, Richard Gowan believes that a Franco-British alliance would show the opposite to be true.
“An effective Franco-British alliance could act as the main European ‘pillar’ of NATO, especially if Germany and other NATO powers grow war-shy after the Afghan experience,” he said. “Over the Atlantic, the US will probably be delighted if the Franco-British cooperation succeeds. The Obama administration favors a stronger Europe, and Nicolas Sarkozy has dropped France’s traditional anti-NATO stance. This is good not only for European defense but transatlantic ties too. But other European countries may feel sidelined.”
Richard Gowan believes Germany may be the biggest loser in this deal if Britain and France come closer together. “Germany’s failure to become a really ‘normal’ military power has been a disappointment to advocates of EU defense over the last decade,” he said. “With Germany increasingly openly playing the role of Europe’s financial arbiter, France and the UK seem set to play a similarly predominant role on security. The European project seems to be breaking off in different strategic directions.”
EU to start military training mission in Somalia, the European Voice reports:
The European Union is on the brink of launching a new military mission, to train around 2,000 Somali security forces in Uganda. A decision is expected from member states in the coming weeks, and the EU Training Mission (EUTM) could start as soon as 1 May.
Around 150 military personnel – with between 20-30 planners and trainers each from France, Spain, Germany and Italy – will provide training in urban warfare and the search for improvised explosive devices to recruits on the side of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, which is resisting Islamist insurgents.
A mission of this sort was proposed almost a year ago by France, which has already trained Somali forces in Djibouti. But planning was held up by member state concerns – including over the risks of trainees deserting to better-paying militias, misappropriation of funds, or human rights abuses by trained soldiers.
Since January, when member states’ foreign ministers approved the mission’s broad outlines, details have been refined on vetting of trainees, monitoring and mentoring of soldiers once they return to Somalia, and the funding and payment of salaries. But aid agencies with headquarters in the EU have expressed anxiety that their staff could become a target for insurgent attacks once the EU starts training government troops.
EU election observers in Sudan. The European Voice reports:
The European Union has dispatched election observers to Sudan amid growing doubts that they will be able to do their job properly. On 11-13 April, the country’s 42 million people are scheduled to elect a new president, parliament and regional authorities, in the first multiparty elections since 1986. (…)
The monitoring group is led by Véronique De Keyser, a Belgian Socialist MEP, and consists of 138 observers from 22 member states, Canada, Norway and Switzerland. De Keyser and around 60 long-term observers have already arrived in the country to monitor technical preparations for the poll and campaigning. Another 80 are to follow for the duration of the elections. A separate delegation of MEPs will also travel to Sudan to be present during the elections.
Catherine Ashton to visit Gaza, Westbank today. Until now, her Middle East tour is barely covered by media — visibility is close to zero. Also no official press statements have been issued. For some reports see Global Europe’s News&Views section.
Barroso “concerned” over fake news report in Georgia. Reuters reports:
Saturday, Georgia’s pro-government Imedi TV aired a 20-minute primetime report saying Russian tanks were advancing on Tbilisi after former allies of President Mikheil Saakashvili called on Moscow to intervene in political unrest.
“I am concerned by recent reports of a hoax news item in Tbilisi,” Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU’s executive European Commission, told a news briefing after talks in Brussels with Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri. “I want to urge Georgia to refrain from any activities which could exacerbate local or regional tensions.”
EU diplomatic service. Member states are ready to agree on internal architecture for EAS, but parliament wants to have larger say. The EU Observer reports:
Progres on EAS. EU member states close to agreement on the internal architecture of the bloc’s new diplomatic corps, but MEPs are threatening to delay the decision-making process if their ideas are brushed aside, the EU Observer reports
According to the latest organigram given by the office of EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton to EU diplomats on Wednesday (17 March), the External Action Service (EAS) will see her delegate all day-to-day work to a secretary general and his two deputies. Ms Ashton is to float above the structure with her private cabinet, 11 special envoys and their advisors in a diplomatic taskforce numbering some 300 people. (…)
Member states’ EU ambassadors are to debate the organigram at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday. The draft blueprint is not expected to elicit a dispute. But the meeting will also debate thornier EAS issues, such as: which parts of the European Commission’s budget should be gobbled up by the new institution and what will be the chain of command for heads of EU foreign delegations, which will, in many cases, run EU commission projects, as well as acting as Ms Ashton’s envoys. (…)
If EU states, Ms Ashton and the EU commission come to terms in the next few weeks, the final EAS mandate could be approved by EU foreign ministers in April, as foreseen in the original schedule.
MEPs are however already talking about a final agreement as late as July or September, given their own competing ideas on the EAS structure and mandate. A group of nine senior MEPs calling itself the “Friends of the EAS” has met three times in Brussels so far to put forward its own ideas to Ms Ashton’s advisors in the hope of influencing the process in an informal way. (…)
“The parliament has the legal power of co-decision over the EAS’ staff and pay rules, so this gives it quite a lot of leverage,” Polish centre-right MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a member of the Friends of the EAS panel, said. “It may happen that the decision-making process will take a lot longer than people imagine.”
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