cnn--2019-08-02--US scaling back Afghanistan embassy at crucial moment in peace talks

Washington (CNN) The Trump administration is in the midst of carrying out a dramatic scaling back of the US embassy in Afghanistan, with the goal of cutting half of the embassy's personnel by the end of September, according to five sources familiar with the matter.  The diplomatic draw down comes as the US is hopeful that a peace deal will be reached with the Taliban that would pave the way to reduce the number of US troops in the country from approximately 14,000 to between 8,000 and 9,000 in the coming months, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations  The goal of the troop reduction had been relayed to the Afghan government by Gen. Scott Miller, the head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and US Special Eepresentative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.  As part of the diplomatic scale back, the State Department is sending home diplomats from Kabul without replacements, cutting back on security personnel, closing some facilities and cancelling proposals to build additional structures like new apartments for embassy personnel.  This is part of the Trump administration's push to "end the war in Afghanistan," a State Department spokesperson said. While the focus has been on reducing troops, the number of people supporting the US embassy in Kabul had dramatically grown in recent years so the administration saw an opportunity to cut numbers there as well, sources explained.  "It is a place where Pompeo could get points with Trump, so he moved on the opportunity," said a former US State Department official. "He also got some buy in from the State Department to do it."  The scaling back of the embassy comes at a sensitive moment. Khalilzad, the main US negotiator, has been meeting with Taliban leaders in Doha for months to seek commitments towards peace in Afghanistan. He has come under fire for keeping the Afghan government in the dark, but this week as he headed to Doha for further talks, he predicted success.  "In Doha, if the Taliban do their part, we will do ours, and conclude the agreement we have been working on," Khalilizad wrote in a tweet on Wednesday.  However, on a trip to Afghanistan last month, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford stuck to the notion any drawdown of troops will continue to be conditions based on the ground and not related to or dependent on political events, according to sources familiar with the visit. But there remains an awareness that Khalilizad is discussing the possible troop draw down with the Taliban, which could trigger quick changes.  Trump has repeatedly voiced his desire to bring an end to the US presence in the 18-year conflict. This week Pompeo gave a glimpse of the pressure he is under when it comes to accomplishing that goal when he said a reduction of forces is "would be job-enhancing."  Trump also recently stirred outrage by suggesting that he could bring a swift end to the war by obliterating the nation.  "I have plans on Afghanistan that if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth, it would be over in literally in 10 days and I don't want to do that -- I don't want to go that route," the President said last week. "We're like policemen. We're not fighting a war. If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win it in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people."  The State Department has been conducting an internal review of their diplomatic footprint in Afghanistan, but it is now focusing on implementing the draw down.  They did not provide exact figures on the drawdown but acknowledged that it is happening.  "Mission Kabul has long been our largest mission in the world, more than double the size of any other U.S. diplomatic mission. Even under the plan based on this review, Embassy Kabul would remain one of our largest diplomatic missions in the world, with a presence calibrated to achieve our goals," said a State Department spokesperson. They added that goal of the posture review has the goal is set on making the US "diplomatic presence and assistance levels more sustainable for the long term."  This process to drive down the numbers at the embassy -- which include security and diplomatic personnel -- is ongoing and has been stretched out over a number of months.  Congress has been briefed on the plans to scale back the embassy, congressional aides say. But there are still major changes that are waiting to be officially cleared by Congress through congressional notification.  The cuts have been fueled by not backfilling jobs when people leave the embassy to rotate to new assignments. Most of these happen in the summer. Given that the process can happen somewhat organically by simply not sending in new personnel, diplomatic security at the State Department has not received executive orders to draw down in large numbers, according to a source familiar with the execute orders.  The State Department also pointed out that the majority of staff reductions are to contractor positions as they look to consolidate.  While some experts and former State Department officials who served at the embassy warn there are risks associated with a scaling back, they don't all completely oppose the drawdown.  "The Embassy in Kabul had grown fairly large over the past decade, particularly as the number of violent incidents spiked in Kabul and it became necessary to increase security to ensure that diplomats could conduct routine business," says Annie Pforzheimer, a former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kabul last year and now a senior non-resident associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I can understand some kind of reduction, but I would be concerned if a drawdown impeded our diplomats' ability to observe local events and interact with Afghans. We should not cut costs if it means we lose these vital connections."  Ambassador John Bass, who has been at the embassy for almost two years, is helping with the effort to scale back, sources say.  The State Department says the cuts are not part of a slash and burn strategy.  "The plan is not a 'haircut' and the reductions are not applied evenly across sections. Rather, the changes we are enacting take into account the importance of preserving capabilities to achieve our top goals -- peace and reconciliation, state stability, and moving the Afghans toward greater self-reliance," said a State Department spokesperson.  Some argue that cutting the size of the embassy could in fact increase its effectiveness.  "If you have cut aid programs and also have almost no field access without military protection, there is no reason to keep people some sort of strange political symbol. If you don't tie the personnel to function you lose focus on the real mission," explains Anthony Cordesman who was once a director of intelligence assessment at the Defense Department and is now at CSIS. "Very often in the past, the personnel numbers did not get readjusted as a program amended or was cut."


cnn--2019-09-09--Republican reps cite 911 anniversary in criticizing Trump decision to invite Taliban to US for peac

Republican reps cite 9/11 anniversary in criticizing Trump decision to invite Taliban to US for peace talks

The comments from Reps. Michael Waltz of Florida and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois come one day after Trump tweeted that he invited Taliban leaders to Camp David for secret peace talks this weekend but canceled the meeting after the Taliban took credit for an attack in Kabul that killed a dozen people, including an American soldier. Trump has long sought to withdraw the US from its longest war, but his revelation on Saturday night that he was considering holding talks with the Taliban at Camp David -- a storied retreat where presidents have famously secured peace accords -- was striking, especially coming so close to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  "As we head into the anniversary of 9/11, I do not ever want to see these terrorists step foot on United States soil. Period," Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield on "Newsroom" Sunday afternoon.  Waltz said Sunday that among his top concerns over Trump's invitation was the Taliban "declaring this a victory."  "The Taliban have shown zero desire for peace. There's no ceasefire that they've agreed to. In fact, they've ramped up their attacks. We talked about the American soldier that just came home this morning in a coffin," he said.  "So I just have a lot of concerns. I'm urging the President to walk away from this deal as it stands," he added. Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told CNN's Ana Cabrera later Sunday that he was in "disbelief" that "Taliban leaders, in the week of 9/11 ... were going to come to really the area in the United States, not too far from New York, Camp David, that has been a place of such wonderful things that have happened in the past." He added that "negotiations between nation states can happen there, but a terrorist organization that doesn't recognize nation states, that kills innocent women and children, that denies women the right to really even be in the same room as their husbands ... to have them at Camp David is totally unacceptable." Kinzinger said Trump was correct to walk away from the talks. When pressed by CNN's Jake Tapper earlier Sunday over criticism of the invitation to host Taliban leaders just days from the 9/11 anniversary, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo only offered that the US has "made real progress" toward peace talks. "It's not just about commitments. We have to see them be able to deliver it. We have to have proof that it's delivered. When we get to that point, when American national security interests can be protected I am confident President Trump will continue the process of trying to get what he has talked about since his campaign -- a reduction of our risk level and the cost to the American people both in terms of life and treasure there in Afghanistan." Pompeo added that the US is still interested in striking a peace deal with the Taliban but won't move forward until there is proof that the Taliban can deliver on its commitments under a potential agreement. This story has been updated.


eveningstandard--2019-09-08--Donald Trump scraps peace deal with Taliban over Kabul bombing

US President Donald Trump has said he cancelled a peace deal with the Taliban after a bombing in the past week in Kabul that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.  The president said in a tweet on Saturday evening that he had scrapped a secret weekend meeting at Camp David with Taliban and Afghanistan leaders after the bombing.  Mr Trump’s tweet was surprising as it would have meant he was ready to host members of the Taliban at the presidential retreat just days before the anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks.  More than 2,400 American troops have been killed since the US invaded Afghanistan to go after the Taliban, who were harbouring al Qaida leaders responsible for 9/11.  Cancelling the talks also goes against Mr Trump's pledge to withdraw the remaining 13,000 to 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan and end US involvement in an almost 18-year conflict.  Zalmay Khalilzad, the Trump administration's diplomat who has talking to Taliban leaders for months, said recently that he was on the "threshold" of an agreement with the Taliban aimed at ending America's longest war.  The president, however, has been under pressure from the Afghan government and some US politicians, including Trump supporter Senator Lindsey Graham, who mistrust the Taliban and think it is too early to withdraw American forces.  "Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday," Mr Trump tweeted.  "They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations," he wrote.  On Thursday, a Taliban car bomb exploded and killed an American soldier, a Romanian service member and 10 civilians in a busy diplomatic area near the US Embassy in Kabul. The bombing was one of many attacks by the Taliban in recent days during US-Taliban talks.  The Defence Department said Sergeant 1st Class Elis A Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Morovis, Puerto Rico, was killed in action when the explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was the fourth US service member killed in the past two weeks in Afghanistan.  "What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn't, they only made it worse!" Mr Trump tweeted.  "If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don't have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?"  It remains unclear if the US-Taliban talks are over or only paused.  Mr Trump said he called off the peace negotiations after the bombing, but envoy Mr Khalilzad was meeting leaders of the insurgent group in Doha, Qatar, on both Thursday and Friday.  The State Department and the White House declined to respond to requests for clarification. There was no immediate response from the Afghan government.  A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told the Associated Press that he could not immediately confirm Mr Trump's account of a Camp David meeting.  "It is a political issue," he said. "We are waiting for our leaders and will update you.  Many in the Afghan government, which has been sidelined from the US-Taliban talks, and among the Afghan people have been sceptical of the negotiations, fearing there was little if nothing in the deal to stop the Taliban from continuing its attacks against civilians.  The two shattering Taliban car bombings in Kabul in the past week, which the insurgent group said targeted foreigners but killed far more civilians, renewed those fears.  Longtime Afghanistan watchers, including former US officials, apparently did not see this twist coming.  After word emerged that a Washington visit by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had been postponed, some assumed Mr Ghani had been trying to make a last-minute effort to meet Mr Trump to express concerns about the approaching deal.  "Whatever was the reason for inviting Taliban leaders to Camp David and whatever the real reason for pulling the plug, the peace process has been disrupted at least for the moment," said Laurel Miller, Asia director for International Crisis Group.  "After all the violence during many months of negotiations, it's difficult to see why last Thursday's attack would be the sole reason for changing course," she said.  "This could be a blow to the credibility of the US commitment to the peace process. Hopefully it can be brought back on track because there's no better alternative."  Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson Centre, tweeted: "It would've been a Trumpian move to the core: It would have legitimized bad guys, offered photo ops galore & generated tons of press attention. And very tacky. And ... little would've come of it."


foreignpolicy--2019-02-26--The US Can Afford a Peace Deal in Korea

The U.S. Can Afford a Peace Deal in Korea  As U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrive in Hanoi this week for their second summit, the possibility of an end-of-war declaration of the Korean War is once more on the horizon, replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement that formalized a cease-fire and left the war technically ongoing to this day. The declaration won’t practically change the status quo, as active hostilities between the two Koreas have been mostly over since 1953. It would be only right for the United States to put a formal end to its longest war. Further, it can be a low-cost way of testing the hypothesis that Kim will begin taking steps for denuclearization if he can be assured of a better relationship with the United States.  A chorus of foreign-policy voices in Washington, however, insists that the Korean War must continue into its 70th year. Their chief argument is that the end-of-war declaration may supply rhetorical backing for the withdrawal of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea. One typical example of this argument is the recent article by the Heritage Foundation’s Peter Brookes, who writes: “Once peace has supposedly been declared between Washington and Pyongyang, what stops North Korea from pushing for an additional reduction in U.S.-South Korea [military] exercises?” Similarly, in an op-ed for the New York Times, Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute called the peace declaration “illusory,” because “[w]ith a signed declaration in hand, the Kim government would demand, naturally, the departure of American forces from the Korean Peninsula.”  This argument rests on several dubious premises. To begin with, it misunderstands the point of the U.S. forces in South Korea. United States Forces Korea exists not only for the sake of opposing North Korea, but also as a key piece in the U.S. positioning in East Asia, particularly given the rise of China. Declaring peace with North Korea does little to change the U.S. strategic posture in this regard. World War II has been over for more than 70 years, but the United States still has tens of thousands of soldiers stationed in the former Axis, namely Germany, Italy, and Japan. No formal, ongoing war is necessary to justify the presence of those troops. The same is true for those in South Korea.  And if North Korea makes a demand, who cares? Washington and Seoul are under no obligation to act just because Pyongyang pushes. The continued U.S. military presence is entirely up to the United States and South Korea. But for what it’s worth, Pyongyang has been consistent in not making an issue out of their presence throughout the recent round of talks. In the first inter-Korean summit between Kim and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, held in April 2018, Pyongyang conveyed to Seoul that it did not intend to demand U.S. forces’ withdrawal. North Korea recently reiterated this point directly to Trump. When North Korea’s former spy chief Kim Yong Chol visited the White House last month to deliver a letter from Kim Jong Un’s, the envoy reportedly pledged that Pyongyang would not raise the U.S. forces issue even after the Korean Peninsula enters a peace regime. Of course, North Korea may be lying, as it often does. But it’s silly to point to a demand that hasn’t been made and that wouldn’t need to be followed even if it were.  Further, there is no indication that either South Korea or the United States wants U.S. forces to leave South Korea. In D.C. foreign-policy circles, the idea that the South Korean public, especially those who are politically left of center, wants the U.S. military to leave is fashionable. That’s simply untrue, as South Korea’s public support for the U.S. military presence continues to be overwhelming. In a survey conducted shortly before the first inter-Korean summit in April 2018, 73.4 percent of South Koreans said that the U.S. forces ought to stay even if a peace treaty formally ends the Korean War. Moon, the left-of-center South Korean president, also gave a clear statement of the same. In his September 2018 interview with Fox News, Moon said: “Even after the peace treaty is signed and even after the unification is achieved, I can see U.S. forces in Korea remaining in place for the peace and stability of the Northeast Asian region.”  The U.S. public is also steadfast in its support for defending South Korea, a key ally in East Asia. Despite the common claim that Americans are tired of foreign engagements, the U.S. public—conservatives and liberals alike—is in favor of using U.S. troops to defend South Korea in case of a North Korean attack, according to a poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in July 2018.  To be sure, there is one notable American who has a dim view of U.S. Forces Korea: President Donald Trump. In Trump’s vulgar worldview, allies are free-riding on the security arrangements provided by the United States, and South Korea is no exception. The recently concluded negotiations for the Special Measures Agreement, which sets forth the cost-sharing structure for U.S. Forces Korea between Washington and Seoul, were a sign of the contempt that Trump holds for the U.S.-South Korean alliance. The negotiations, which are usually a routine exercise occurring every five years, stalled after the United States made an outrageous demand that would have nearly doubled South Korea’s contribution from about $864 million a year to $1.6 billion. That was made all the worse because it came shortly after South Korea took on most of the $13 billion in costs required to renovate Camp Humphreys, a U.S. base south of Seoul. Reportedly, the two countries agreed to a deal in which South Korea would contribute around $1 billion, but they will review the deal again in just a year.  This caused some analysts to claim that an end-of-war declaration might give Trump an excuse to withdraw the U.S. forces from South Korea. For example, Sue Mi Terry at the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently wrote: “if the Korean War is formally over, and South and North Korea are in a state of peace, what is the rationale for keeping 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea? … The danger of an [sic] U.S. withdrawal is all the greater because Donald Trump is president … It would not take much to lead Trump to withdraw U.S. forces—and a peace declaration could very well provide the excuse he is looking for.”  But there’s good reason to be skeptical about Trump’s ability to withdraw the whole of U.S. Forces Korea by presidential fiat. Trump made headlines in December 2018 by declaring U.S. withdrawal from the Syrian civil war, which caused then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis to resign in protest and the Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell to issue a rare rebuke against Trump. But nearly two months later, the Pentagon does not even have a timeline for the withdrawal, as the countries involved are unable to craft an arrangement after the United States leaves.  All this is over disengaging from less than four years of participating in an unpopular war with a little more than 4,000 troops. The backlash against a U.S. Forces Korea withdrawal from the South Korean government and the U.S. government (including Trump’s own cabinet) would be incomparably greater, before even considering the logistical challenge of removing the 28,500 U.S. troops who have been seamlessly integrated with the South Korean military for over 60 years. Even in the unlikely case that Trump declares the full withdrawal of U.S. forces shortly after his second summit with Kim, it is more likely that Trump will no longer be the president before the U.S. troops actually leave the country.  But more notable in this argument is the perverse logic that the United States must not end the Korean War because it may cause the president of the United States to withdraw the U.S. military from South Korea. As discussed earlier, nothing stops the United States from formally ending the Korean War and maintaining forces there, as long as South Korea is willing to host the U.S. troops—and it is. But this twisted logic in fact points to the more fundamental issue. It is not the end-of-war declaration that undermines the U.S.-South Korea alliance; the damage is coming from the United States and its leader. Instead of demanding the two Koreas continue to be locked in a forever war, perhaps American foreign-policy analysts should spend more energy thinking about how to direct their own government toward achieving peace in the Korean Peninsula while remaining faithful to its ally.


foreignpolicy--2019-07-04--There Will Be No Peace for Afghanistan

There Will Be No Peace for Afghanistan

There Will Be No Peace for Afghanistan  As talks to end the war in Afghanistan continue in Qatar this week, and amid continued political disarray in Kabul, there seems to be one clear trend on the ground: The Taliban are consolidating control. The longer the war drags on—now in its 18th year—the more the balance of the conflict tips in the insurgent group’s favor. While there has been fierce debate in the West and in government-controlled areas of Afghanistan about what peace talks with the Taliban mean for women’s rights and the future of Afghan democracy, the view from Taliban-controlled areas suggests a harsh reality that few in the international community seem prepared for: If peace talks succeed, the Taliban will effectively formalize, and likely expand, their control over vast swaths of the country. If peace talks fail, however, the outcome will likely be far worse, with renewed fighting and a precarious government in Kabul.  The Taliban have spent years preparing for a return to power. In areas currently under their control, the insurgency has replaced the Afghan government with their own administration, including sharia courts and a force of shadow civil servants responsible for an array of tasks from monitoring teacher attendance to collecting taxes.  Most Afghans in these areas, which have borne the brunt of the conflict, simply want the fighting to end. They assume that under any U.S.-brokered deal, Taliban control will simply become permanent. And they have strikingly modest hopes for peace: “Once they don’t have to fight anymore, maybe the Taliban will be less strict,” one woman in the eastern province of Logar said. “Maybe they will let girls go back to school.”  If hope is in short supply, it is in part because hopes have been dashed too many times. In June 2018, a three-day cease-fire declared by the Taliban, the Afghan government, and international forces was the first official pause in the 18-year war. It was a remarkable turn of events that few could have predicted. Pictures of Taliban, government forces, and civilians celebrating the Eid holiday together flooded social media. There was little violence and no civilian casualties. Afghans gained a glimpse of what peace might look like and a sense that an end to the war might finally be in sight.  It wasn’t to be. Fighting resumed almost immediately after the cease-fire and has not let up since. The wife of a Taliban fighter described the cease-fire as a cruel trick that created hope only to snatch it away. When I asked about the prospect of peace talks, she waved her hand dismissively. Like many others, she believed that the war would only end if U.S. forces withdrew.  Nonetheless, recent progress made in political talks would have seemed unthinkably optimistic even a year ago. The United States reversed its refusal to talk directly to the Taliban and appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation in September 2018. Khalilzad and Taliban representatives have since engaged in several rounds of negotiations. In January, Khalilzad announced that the United States and the Taliban had broadly agreed on a draft document outlining a withdrawal of U.S. troops and guarantees from the Taliban that they will not harbor or support foreign terrorist organizations. Before it can be finalized, however, the United States has insisted that the Taliban agree to talk directly to the Afghan government and declare another cease-fire. The Taliban have steadfastly refused—they don’t even recognize the government in Kabul.  As talks continued, Washington ramped up airstrikes as well as searches and raids targeting the Taliban. These operations are no longer geared toward reasserting Afghan government control or preventing the Taliban from gaining further ground. The objective is instead to pressure the Taliban into making concessions, such as talking directly to the Afghan government. No one knows any longer how much territory might be under Taliban influence or control. Operation Resolute Support, the NATO mission to advise, train, and support Afghan forces, stopped measuring this in October 2018. Instead, the military focus seems to be on increasing on Taliban body counts. The consequences for civilians have been disastrous. Civilian casualties from airstrikes reached record highs in 2018. In May, the United Nations announced that, for the first time since it started systematically monitoring civilian casualties, international and Afghan government forces are responsible for more civilian deaths than the insurgents.  While this increased military pressure might keep the Taliban at bay, there’s little indication it has dented their resolve. Instead, they present the cease-fire and talks with the United States as a sign of their political and military strength.  “Americans said this group is not united, it is fragmented,” a senior member of the Taliban leadership told me in Dubai last January. “The bottom line is that we did this to prove to the world we are under one command, and everyone should respect this command.”  To fighters on the ground, peace talks are an acknowledgment of the Taliban’s growing power. The fighters I interviewed were resolute: They would not lay down arms until the United States withdrew and what they considered to be a true Islamic government could be established. They uniformly insisted that of course they wanted peace—but on their terms. The Taliban focus is now on waiting out U.S. resolve.  Taliban foot soldiers see no point in talks with the Afghan government. “If the United States stops their support to the government for even a month, we would be able to take all of Afghanistan,” a Taliban commander in Helmand said. “That’s why we have to reach an agreement with Washington.”  Despite refusing to formally engage with the Afghan government, Taliban leaders have indicated that they are open to sharing power with other factions. They have also said that they want an inclusive postwar government. At a conference held in Moscow in February with former President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan power brokers in attendance, the Taliban leadership called for “the establishment of an inclusive independent Islamic System that is acceptable to Afghans and reflects Islamic and Afghan values.”  The degree to which the Taliban’s overtures are genuine is unclear. Fighters on the ground generally assume that they will retain control of their areas—and assert full control in currently contested areas—under any peace deal. The fate of major cities and regions that have resisted Taliban influence was left undefined. What power-sharing seems to mean to these fighters is that the Taliban are willing to allow others to participate in their future government. Fighters hoped that this government would enforce the Taliban’s brand of sharia and conservative social practices that deeply constrain women’s rights and freedoms. If the Taliban were to take power in this way, the best outcome that can be reasonably hoped for is that they will form a less incompetent and more lenient government than they did in the 1990s.  Talks with the Afghan government seem a long way off, however, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the Taliban’s intransigence. The National Unity Government is increasingly divided, with Afghan political factions gearing up for presidential elections scheduled for Sept. 28. A peace jirga, or political gathering, convened by the government last month yielded little consensus and seemed to be more about electoral politics than ending the war. Several major political factions boycotted the jirga, claiming it was a political trick designed to bolster President Ashraf Ghani’s reelection prospects.  The possibility of credible elections is remote. Presidential elections, originally set for April 20, have been twice delayed. Provincial and district council elections, also initially scheduled for September, have been indefinitely postponed. In parliamentary elections held last October, at least one-third of polling stations could not open due to insecurity, and the results were so contested that they took six months to announce. Afghanistan’s last two presidential elections, in 2009 and 2014, were widely fraudulent, and the results were disputed. In the 2014 elections, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry intervened to broker a power-sharing agreement that would prevent the government from unraveling. To expect a conclusive result in the next round of voting would be deeply unrealistic.  Even the best potential outcome is likely to be a deeply unpalatable one. If peace talks actually succeed, the Taliban will exert considerable power, if not outright control, in any future government. The consequences for Afghans, particularly women, in areas currently held by the government are likely to be severe. Donors in Kabul have consistently articulated support for peace efforts. Whether they would continue to support such a government is another question altogether. The alternatives, however, may be even worse: a continued escalation in violence or all-out civil war.  “The fighters on the front line on both sides can make peace easily,” a fighter in Helmand argued. “If we left it up to them the war would be settled, but, like every war, it is not the fighters who decide.”  For better or worse, the fate of Afghanistan is up to political leaders in Washington, Kabul, and Doha to decide. As the current round of talks—the seventh such attempt—continues in Qatar, the United States is eager to finalize a deal to end its involvement in the war. U.S. military and State department officials said privately that they were working with a “tweet of Damocles” hanging over their heads, fearing that U.S. President Donald Trump will spontaneously issue a tweet withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as he did with Syria in December 2018. The Afghan government is increasingly consumed by infighting and electoral politics. And the Taliban are running out the clock, betting that their refusal to talk to the Afghan government will allow them to strengthen their negotiating hand and their territorial control. At present, none of these actors appear ready, or able, to make the sacrifices required to end the war.


foreignpolicy--2019-08-30--Call to Rearm Threatens Colombias Peace Process

Call to Rearm Threatens Colombia’s Peace Process

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: A former FARC commander in Colombia returns to the fight, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deals with the backlash to his move to suspend Parliament, and an Iranian launch vehicle explodes before takeoff.  We’re taking a break Monday for Labor Day. Audrey Wilson, Foreign Policy’s newsletter editor, will be back in the saddle Tuesday. We welcome your feedback at morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.  Three years after it first went into force, the already tenuous peace deal between Bogotá and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is facing its greatest threat yet. On Thursday, a top former guerrilla leader—Luciano Marín, who goes by Iván Márquez—appeared in a video, flanked by other influential former rebel figures, accusing the government of betraying the peace accord and calling for a return to war.  It is not yet clear how many of the 7,000 or so demobilized fighters are likely to heed his call, or how many already active dissidents he will be able to recruit and unify.  The peace agreement was meant to bring an end to a half-century of armed conflict that left more than 200,000 people dead. Smaller guerrilla groups, most notably the National Liberation Army (ELN), still remain active, and the FARC’s demobilization sparked a spike in violence as some fought to take control of formerly FARC-held territory.  What does this mean for the peace agreement? In the years since the peace accord took effect, both sides have struggled to uphold their ends of the bargain. The government committed to keeping former fighters safe, but more than a hundred have been killed since the deal was signed, along with hundreds of local activists, while planned development projects in rural areas have stalled. Meanwhile, thousands of FARC fighters have returned to the jungle and the drug trade that has long sustained their movement.  “Support for Colombia’s peace deal seems to be eroding on all sides,” Francisco Serrano wrote in Foreign Policy last month. “Renewed violence, a charged political environment, and the inherent difficulties of implementing parts of the plan have taken a toll.”  What will Duque do? Political change in Colombia has also played a role: Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez is far more skeptical of the deal than was former President Juan Manuel Santos, who signed it and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Duque has vowed to hunt down the fighters in the video.  Rodrigo Londoño, the former head of FARC and an architect of the peace deal, said most former guerrillas remained committed to peace. “Even if the government does not fully agree with the current peace deal, it should take steps to ensure its implementation,” Serrano wrote in FP. “If it fails to do so, Colombia risks being dragged back into the past instead of moving toward the future.”  Boris Johnson is pushing for an eleventh-hour Brexit deal. Britain is still reeling in the wake of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to suspend Parliament in an apparent effort to limit legislators’ room to maneuver in the run-up to the Oct. 31 deadline for Britain’s exit from the European Union.  On Friday morning, John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, sought to join a legal challenge brought by the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller at the High Court in London. Two other court hearings challenging the prime minister’s move are taking place in Edinburgh and Belfast. In response to the backlash, Johnson has promised to redouble efforts to seek a last-minute deal with Brussels.  But the EU does not necessarily intend to budge. “No-deal is not in its economic or political interest, but it is preferable to abandoning its key principles,” Helene von Bismarck argues in FP. “The reason why the rest of the EU has held firm on the main point of contention, the Irish border, is not that it is comfortable that a no-deal Brexit could never happen,” she adds. “It is their resolve that the integrity of the single market and solidarity with Ireland must be paramount.”  Netanyahu’s electoral calculus. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered the leader of the small Zehut Party, Moshe Feiglin, a cabinet post in exchange for dropping out of the race. Zehut, which ran primarily on the issue of medical marijuana legalization, was polling below the electoral threshold and risked being shut out of the Knesset. If the party’s voters now cast their ballots for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, it could help Likud gain an extra seat. Netanyahu, who has been lagging in polls for the Sept. 17 election, might make a similar offer to the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which includes followers of the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane and the Kahanist group Kach, which was declared a terrorist organization by the Israeli and U.S. governments during the 1990s.  Iran’s failure to launch. Tehran has devoted considerable efforts this year to botched attempts to reach outer space. Rockets sent up in January and February did not make it into orbit, and a launch vehicle slated for a new attempt “blew up on the launch pad” on Thursday, Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who reviewed satellite images of the site, told NPR.  South Korea’s Park faces retrial. South Korea’s highest court ordered a new trial for former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence after her conviction last year on bribery and abuse of power charges. The court ruled that each bribery count should have resulted in a separate verdict rather than being wrapped into a single one. Park’s 10-month trial shone a light on shady dealings at the highest levels of South Korean business and politics.  For news and analysis on the world’s most populous and fastest-growing regions, sign up for FP’s new weekly newsletters: South Asia Brief, delivered on Tuesdays, and China Brief, delivered on Wednesdays.  Hong Kong activists arrested. In Hong Kong, authorities detained three leading protest movement figures: Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests that laid the groundwork for today’s pro-democracy unrest, and Andy Chan, who was the leader of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party, which is currently banned. The move was likely related to plans to protest the five-year anniversary of China’s decision to increase its involvement in Hong Kong’s elections, the New York Times reports.  Migrants face mumps. Some 900 immigrants held in U.S. detention facilities have contracted mumps, a contagious viral disease, over the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees are 4,000 times more likely to get mumps than someone not in detention, Marc Stern, an affiliate assistant professor in public health at the University of Washington, told Buzzfeed News.  Hurricane Dorian. A hurricane is heading toward Florida’s east coast, where it is expected to make landfall on Monday morning as a Category 4 storm unless conditions change. Residents of the state are stocking up on emergency supplies and preparing to potentially evacuate. So far, the storm has caused power outages and flooding in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra.  Amazon owns Alexa. Amazon’s Echo, a voice-controlled speaker that listens to and records you in your home and responds to the name Alexa, appears to be crowding out other uses of that name. Last year, the number of children in Britain to receive that name dropped by more than 50 percent, Reuters reports.  Morbid marsupials. Male Kalutas, marsupials the size of mice found in Northwestern Australia, expire after they mate.“We found that males only mate during one highly synchronized breeding season and then they all die,” Genevieve Hayes, a vertebrate ecologist and the lead author of a new Journal of Zoology study on sex and death among Kalutas, told the New York Times.  For more on these stories and many others, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, and sign-up for our other newsletters.  Send your tips, comments, questions, and corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.


foreignpolicy--2019-09-05--Afghan Peace Deal Stumbles

Afghan Peace Deal Stumbles

\What’s on tap: A tentative agreement between the Taliban and the United States faces new roadblocks as new violence rocks Kabul, a weakened Islamic States is using cows as suicide bombers, Erdogan issues migrant threat to spur progress on Syria safe zone.  Pompeo won’t sign. Efforts to broker a peace deal between the Taliban and the U.S. government is running into headwinds in both Kabul and Washington, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly refusing to sign an agreement brokered by the U.S. special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad.  According to a report in Time, Pompeo has refused to put his signature on the “agreement in principle” hammered by out in nine rounds of talks between Khalilzad and Taliban negotiators. The deal would take the first tentative steps toward peace in the war-torn nation, but it doesn’t ensure several crucial things: the continued presence of U.S. counterterrorism forces; the survival of the pro-U.S. Afghan government; or a permanent ceasefire.  Does it matter? It’s not clear that Pompeo’s refusal to sign the agreement is a dealbreaker. Khalilzad himself may sign it, or the United States and the Taliban may simply issue a joint statement, according to Time.  But this “diplomatic sleight of hand” does not address the core concerns current and former officials have raised: that once a withdrawal is underway, it will be irreversible, risking the hard-won progress toward building a stable Afghanistan.  Meanwhile, in Kabul… Khalilzad’s efforts are also running into trouble in Kabul, where the government raised questions on Wednesday about the deal. Writing on Twitter, a government spokesperson said provisions of the deal require “serious debate and revision.”  Violence rolls on. With the fate of Khalilzad’s peace efforts in question, violence in Afghanistan shows no sign of abating. The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing on Thursday, that killed 10 people and wounded another 42 in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter. It was the second car bombing in the capital this week.  Erdogan threatens to ‘open the gates.’ A frustrated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Thursday to “open the gates” to allow more than 3 million Syrian refugees to leave Turkey for Western countries unless progress is made to establish a “safe zone” inside Syria.  Washington and Ankara have been engaged for months in talks to establish the safe zone in northeast Syria, where the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization, are still fighting the remnants of the Islamic State. Officials recently set up a joint operations center there to coordinate the efforts.  Washington and Ankara still at odds. But Erdogan said differences still remain on what exactly the safe zone will look like. He did not elaborate, but Ankara likely wants the Kurds out of the area.  For their part, the Kurds think the safe zone is off to a good start. U.S. and Kurdish troops conducted a joint patrol Wednesday in a town on the border with Turkey, according to reports.  Sitting ducks. As China develops ever more sophisticated long-range missiles, urgent changes are needed to American basing in Japan, Tanner Greer writes for Foreign Policy. If a conflict with Beijing broke out tomorrow, there is a very real chance that America’s frontline forces in Japan, currently cordoned off into a number of easily attacked bases, would be crippled in the first moments.  Enrichment. Iran continues to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium and is progressively breaching the limits of the 2015 nuclear agreement, according to an IAEA report obtained by Reuters. On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went further, ordering that limits on Iranian nuclear research and development be ended.  Cash for ships. The U.S. State Department has offered the captains of vessels carrying Iranian goods large sums of cash in order to pilot their ships to countries where they will be seized, in what amounts to the latest attempt by Washington to pressure Iran, the Financial Times reports.  Memoir wars. The Pentagon is attempting to quash the publication of a memoir authored by a speech writer for former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. The Pentagon has threatened Retired Navy Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass with a range of consequences if he is deemed to have violated Mattis’s trust, the Washington Post reports.  Wargames for a new era. A series of war games this fall led by the Joint Staff will evaluate new battle plans for fighting China and Russia, in the latest sign that the Pentagon is shifting from two decades of fighting in the Middle East to prepare itself for a future that could include a sophisticated, high-tempo war with a peer adversary.  China weighs in on North Korea. With both Beijing and Pyongyang attempting to revive stalled diplomatic initiatives with the United States, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a visit to North Korea that he would like to see “closer communication and cooperation on the international stage” between his country and the North, the South China Morning Post reports.  For more news and analysis from Foreign Policy and around the world, subscribe to Morning Brief, delivered weekday mornings.  Unconventional methods. Increasingly weakened by four years of fighting against U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and reluctant to use humans to carry bombs, the Islamic State has resorted to a new tactic: Cows.  Two cows strapped with explosives were killed Saturday when the bombs detonated remotely on the outskirts of Al Islah, Iraq, according to the New York Times. The explosion damaged nearby houses but did not harm any people.  The use of animals as “booby traps” is not new in the region, the Times writes. During the civil war in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, Al Qaeda in Iraq placed bombs inside and under dead livestock. And in Afghanistan, donkeys have been used to carry bombs targeting NATO forces.  Still, the Times writes “using cows to deliver bombs is an odd strategy in Iraq, where the animals are prized both for meat and milk.”  Preparing for 2020. Intelligence and law enforcement officials huddled with American tech companies for a day-long meeting on Wednesday to discuss election security ahead of the 2020 election. The meeting comes as both Washington and Silicon Valley attempt to prevent another effort by Russia or another foreign power to meddle in American politics.  WikiLeaks. The imprisoned hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was called to testify before a Virginia grand jury that is believed to be investigating WikiLeaks hacker Julian Assange. Hammond was an early WikiLeaks source, and the request for his testimony raises questions about the scope of the U.S. government’s case against Assange, Gizmodo reports.  AI radar. The American military is using radar data in the Pacific to build an artificial intelligence     model of air traffic in the region and to detect a possible sneak attack, Defense One reports.  Spy satellites. After President Donald Trump tweeted an astoundingly high-resolution image of a scorched Iranian launchpad following a failed rocket launch, amateur astronomers quickly identified the source of the image as a highly classified U.S. spy satellite, NPR reports.  Mystery explosion. Examinations of isotopes sprayed into the atmosphere following a mysterious explosion in Russia indicate that they likely originated from a nuclear reactor, but the application of that system remains unknown, Nature reports.  “This guy scares the living shit out of me.” — President George W. Bush’s 2008 description of then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as quoted in a New York Times Magazine account of how close Israel and the United States came to going to war with Iran.  Stuxnet mystery. For years, students of the Stuxnet virus, which infected Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz some time in 2007, have wondered how American intelligence managed to infect the plant’s computer systems. Now, journalists Kim Zetter and Huib Modderkolk reveal in Yahoo News that the virus was delivered by an Iranian mole recruited by Dutch intelligence.  That’s it for today. To get this newsletter in your inbox, subscribe here or sign-up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or typos to securitybrief@foreignpolicy.com.


foreignpolicy--2019-09-08--How to Keep the Colombian Peace Deal Alive

How to Keep the Colombian Peace Deal Alive  MEDELLÍN, Colombia—Last week, several former commanders of Colombia’s largely demobilized rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released a video in which they announced a “new phase of armed struggle.” Only three years ago, those same men—known best by wartime aliases, Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich—participated in negotiating the end of a decadeslong conflict with the Colombian government. But in the video, their presence was a stark reminder of the fragility of the peace accords on the ground.  Almost three years on from the finalization of the peace agreement, Colombia’s implementation of the promises made in the accords has lagged significantly. Colombian President Iván Duque will likely face increased pressure from his own party’s leader, former President Álvaro Uribe, to respond to this latest salvo from the FARC with more aggressive action.  “In Colombia, there was this massive fire that was the armed conflict, and this fire almost totally went out, there was only a little bit left,” said Ariel Ávila, the deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, a Colombian research group. “President Duque has to decide what he’s going to throw on it: gasoline or water.”  In response to the rearmament, Duque announced he would send a specialized military force in search of the rebels and offered a 3 billion-peso, or $882,000, reward for the capture of those in the 32-minute video announcement. But to prevent former fighters from potentially joining Márquez and Santrich, Duque should also commit to implementing the accords agreed to in 2016, experts say, although this would require a significant break from his political allies.  Under Duque, much of the implementation of the accords has frozen to a near standstill. Nearly one-third of the accord’s 578 provisions have not been implemented at all, and the implementation of another third has barely begun, according to an April report by the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.  Those failures represent “death by a thousand cuts” to the peace in Colombia.  In particular, the government has failed to move quickly on rural development and effectively reintegrating former rank-and-file FARC members, as well as addressing a pattern of hundreds of targeted killings of social and community leaders since 2016. Those failures represent “death by a thousand cuts” to the peace in Colombia, according to Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America.  Reintegration of former combatants and restitution to victims have been consistently underfunded. Rural zones of the country once dominated by the FARC remain undeveloped. Many are now under territorial control of other illegal armed groups. Threats, attacks, and assassinations of human rights defenders have surged countrywide, leaving a body count of 738 since 2016, according to the think tank Indepaz, exceeding pre-peace accord numbers.  Demobilized FARC guerrillas have faced violent attacks as well. Some 137 former fighters, as well as victims including the 7-month-old baby of a demobilized guerrilla member, have been assassinated since the signing of the agreement. Many more have received threats, often from criminal groups claiming links to Colombia’s paramilitary groups and actors claiming to represent active remnants of those groups themselves.  The lack of security, said the former FARC guerrilla Hugo Fernando Ramírez, caused many demobilized combatants to reconsider the future of peace. “More than one of us have had to think about it,” he said, cradling his 3-month-old baby in his arms in his home in the country’s capital of Bogotá. “There aren’t any guarantees for what awaits us. What are we waiting for? A bullet in the head? Years in prison? Who knows.”  Ramírez is one of many of the 13,000 former FARC guerrillas who say they want to continue pushing for peace. But an estimated 2,200 others have left the demobilization areas or never demobilized to begin with. There are an estimated 20 dissident bands of the FARC that never submitted to the peace accords and may consolidate further in future. Despite that, the FARC is not likely to return in any significant way to the widespread insurgency of the past.  The announcement presents Duque with an opportunity to shift the trajectory of his government and, in turn, the future of peace in Colombia. Bolstering the same policies that have been long underfunded and slow-walked by the government will be key to keeping a growing number of ex-FARC members from joining the dissidents as a response to Márquez, said Isacson and Ávila. Chief among those policies is the reintegration of former combatants, including providing economic opportunities for ex-combatants and guaranteeing legal and, perhaps most importantly, physical security to stop fears of being targeted.  Duque’s administration should “make sure they know that there are economic opportunities, that the government is going to stop dragging its feet because of this, and, also, that the government is keeping an eye on you,” Isacson said.  But the embattled president faces major hurdles to even inch in that direction. The once-moderate politician must consider supporters of ex-president Uribe—the base of Duque’s own political party, Democratic Center, which has railed against the accords.  “A lot of Colombians are angry, and rightfully, at Márquez and at the FARC,” Isacson said. “They [Uribe’s followers] are going to take that anger and channel it into hatred against the entire process.”  With all eyes on the Colombian government, the coming months will determine both if Duque’s words and actions will escalate or defuse the situation.  Duque may be able to break ground in implementing the accords by reaching out to opposition parties in Colombia’s Congress, which have urged him and ex-combatants to implement the accords. The former FARC commander Rodrigo Londoño, alias “Timochenko,” who is now a leader of the FARC’s iteration as a political party, said he rejected the call to arms, saying it violated the group’s promises in the accords, and urged Duque to implement the agreement, calling it a “a route to a stable and lasting peace.”  Although the chances of those political opposites reaching across the aisle seems unlikely, Sergio Guzmán, the director of the Bogotá-based organization Colombia Risk Analysis, said more moderate parties may soon begin making a harder push for implementation of the accords. “The result of this announcement has made a lot of people wake up and realize the fragility of peace,” Guzmán said.  Much of the stalled process has been a product of an embattled government. While Duque’s party, the Democratic Center, holds the presidency, it does not hold a majority in Congress, leaving the country’s government in a deadlock. Duque has been unable to move forward on a number of key issues, including corruption and economic reforms, setting up an uphill battle for his second year in the presidency.  Key facets of the accords—such as victims’ restitution and rural development—have been bogged down by chronic underfunding and bureaucratic obstacles, while the country’s transitional justice system has been openly attacked by Duque’s government. Those obstacles still loom as large as ever for Duque, but Guzmán said it’s those exact programs that may soon be used as a “bargaining chip” by the starkly divided government to make progress on other agendas—namely, pushing forward Duque’s budget proposal, which has been embroiled in political conflict. “The question now becomes, what are the things the government is going to bargain for to implement peace?” he said.  The situation has only complicated already-tense relations with Venezuela. Colombian officials say that the rebels are seeking refuge in the neighboring country and that the embattled government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is rearming the FARC dissidents to destabilize Colombia. Tensions were already kindled between the two countries, but the possibility of the group leaning on the Venezuelan border for refuge—as Colombia’s other guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has already done—could escalate conflict.  With all eyes on the Colombian government, the coming months will determine both if Duque’s words and actions will escalate or defuse the situation and how many guerrillas may follow the lead of Márquez and other rebels, said Ávila.  The day after the announcement, Colombian troops killed nine dissidents formerly belonging to the FARC in an airstrike in the southern jungle zone of Caquetá. The military operation was what Duque called “a clear message” to the dissidents to lay down their weapons. The reception of that message could usher in “a new wave of violence” from remnants of the FARC and of paramilitary groups, said Ávila.  But Ramírez, the demobilized former fighter—who now works on a peace-building project to bring tourism to Colombia’s former conflict zones—said he’s still holding on to hope that those who laid down their arms can push forward.  “There are a huge number of us who have hope to continue implementing the process despite the obstacles,” he said, “despite all of the valleys they’ve put in front of us.”


foreignpolicy--2019-10-18--Why the United States Is So Bad at Peace Talks

Why the United States Is So Bad at Peace Talks  Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Afghan peace process, closing off for the time being a rare opening to resolve a long, stagnant, and unpopular war. Whatever one thinks of the specifics of the deal that the U.S. representative at the talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, had nearly finalized with the Taliban, the episode was a perfect demonstration of the conflicted, often self-defeating view of peace agreements that mires U.S. foreign policy.  Trump’s decision followed months of criticism in Washington that the talks were legitimizing the Taliban, delegitimizing the Afghan government, giving away too much, extracting too little. Some of the critiques were reasonable. Most ignored basic realities: Afghanistan is not a winnable war, the years-old stalemate is unacceptable to most Americans and all Afghans, and a political settlement—albeit one that requires painful compromises—is the only remotely desirable way out of the dilemma. Yet when a possible path opened to such an agreement, much of the American polity recoiled.  The incongruity is hardly unique to Afghanistan. Most U.S. policymakers from several administrations would like to see peace agreements end civil wars across the Middle East and Africa. The same is true of nuclear pacts with Iran or North Korea, if one defines these as peace agreements of a sort. (The latest attempt at talks between Washington and Pyongyang on Oct. 5 broke down after less than a day.) In each case, the United States is confronted with a problem that has persisted for years or decades, and most U.S. officials by now want to escape an unfavorable status quo.  Diplomatic efforts to do so, however, encounter similar criticisms: too much offered, too little extracted, too kind to U.S. enemies, and too harsh to U.S. friends. When such criticism swells, leaders tend either to abandon existing agreements or to deprioritize diplomacy in favor of politically safer displays of toughness. In turn, the United States tends to pour money into each standoff; it tightens sanctions without halting an adversary’s nuclear and missile programs; its troops kill and are killed, with little prospect of altering the battlefield. Wars or lower-level conflicts grind on by the year and decade.  Talks do occur in each conflict but rarely as the top U.S. priority behind which all levers of power align—and rarely with a realistic vision of the outcome. That is what must change.  The first is the mirage of a perfect deal. The United States has good reasons to want North Korea to denuclearize, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign, Iran to pull back from the Arab world. None of this is plausible. An administration that softens its demands, however, invites attacks that all too often rest on magical thinking—that with the same amount of compromise by the United States, talks could have yielded much greater sacrifice by the other side. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu memorably told the U.S. Congress about the Iran nuclear agreement, “the alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal.” U.S. negotiators, however, are not incompetent. The “better deal” is usually a chimera, the fantasy impedes tangible achievement, and the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.  Combative half-measures too often simply reinforce the undesirable status quo.  The second impediment is the allure of hard power. The American public mostly opposes major new military commitments, especially for Middle Eastern wars, but there is little political down side to ordering sanctions, airstrikes, Special Forces raids, or carrier deployments that theoretically squeeze an adversary. Officials can defend such moves as tough and pragmatic, and the cost will not exceed public tolerance unless something goes badly wrong. The problem is that these combative half-measures too often simply reinforce the undesirable status quo. All the while, proliferators proliferate, the defense budget spills across Middle Eastern battlefields, American casualties increase, local casualties soar, and resolutions inch further away.  The third problem is contempt for one’s adversary. It is difficult for a superpower to sit down as apparent equals with leaders of a rogue state and harder still with an overachieving local militia. To justify doing so, officials are tempted to wrangle over who talks to whom—must the Taliban speak first to Washington or to Kabul? Pyongyang to Washington or a multilateral consortium? Tehran to Washington or an intermediary like Oman? Sequencing and the “shape of the table” matter in each of these negotiations, but they are never the core of a dispute. Too often the trifles of process prevent for years any serious discussion of substance.  Fourth is opposition from long-standing local partners who feel threatened. For every example like South Korean President Moon Jae-in nudging the United States toward diplomacy with North Korea, there are many more like Netanyahu and the Gulf monarchies blasting the Iran deal, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemning the Taliban talks, and the United Arab Emirates and Egypt opposing any political settlement that makes room for Islamists. These partners typically have more to lose than Washington does, and it is reasonable that they fear a U.S. drift toward their adversaries. If merely backing familiar allies could resolve these conflicts, however, peace talks would not be necessary. Washington’s clients end up holding it hostage.  By contrast, the United States’ most important global allies are usually quick to support peace agreements—and sometimes, so are its global rivals. Washington’s tumultuous relationships with China and Russia have not stopped both in recent years from assisting the Taliban talks, acceding to the Iran deal, and joining the six-party talks when they were the main thrust of the North Korea effort. European powers consistently backed all three. An earnest peace effort can create remarkable bedfellows.  The United States has not lost the ability to secure extraordinary diplomatic breakthroughs when it wants to. To do so, however, will mean defining peace agreements as the United States’ top priority and exit strategy from legacy conflicts and then trading what is necessary to get a tolerable agreement. This might imply accepting, for example, that the United States can contain but not dismantle the North Korean nuclear program; incorporate but not defeat the Afghan Taliban; stabilize but not eliminate Iran’s influence in the Arab world.  Even such narrower objectives will require the United States to align all instruments of national power in pursuit of them. The United States eventually did this in Afghanistan; in 2018-2019 it began specifying a political settlement—rather than the military campaign—as its top overall priority. Within months, American diplomats transformed the peace process and rallied the world behind it. The Obama administration likewise defined a nuclear agreement with Iran as its main goal in the country and devoted several years of diplomacy and sanctions policy to it. Whatever one thinks of the resulting agreement, the strategy worked.  In Afghanistan, it is unclear whether the peace deal is truly dead or last month’s cancellation simply reflects Trump’s idiosyncratic negotiating style. The result of the near-miss, however, is to revert to a stalemate that every month claims (depending on the estimate) thousands of Afghan lives, two American lives, and almost $4 billion from the U.S. government. The Iran and North Korea nuclear programs, and the proliferating wars of the Arab world, have similarly dogged the United States for a generation. Vastly better outcomes are achievable on each, but only if U.S. policymakers reject unacceptable status quos, identify their priorities, and accept compromises to achieve them.


foreignpolicy--2019-11-12--As Assad Gains Ground, New Syria Talks Offer Little Hope of Peace

While senior diplomats believe the latest round of U.N.-sponsored Syria peace talks is a promising though limited step forward, experts and insiders say there is little reason to believe a newly formed constitutional committee that met in Geneva this month will yield concrete results.  After more than eight years of war, prospects for reaching a political solution in Syria through the Geneva talks appear dim. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has made it clear that his government is not bound by any agreements a pro-Damascus delegation may strike at the U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva, a constitutional committee engineered by Moscow; meanwhile the Turkish-backed opposition continues to make unrealistic demands for a political transition that would lead to Assad’s removal.  “The problem is neither side is serious about negotiations. The regime is not going to change because of this pressure—they are just going to wait, even if it means waiting years until [U.S. President Donald] Trump leaves office,” one U.S. State Department official said. On the other side: “The opposition has always demanded, essentially, the death of the regime, which also isn’t a serious negotiating position.”  “The problem is neither side is serious about negotiations.”  But as discussions wrapped up last Friday, Geir Pedersen, the United Nations envoy for Syria, said the talks went better than expected, adding that the 150 delegates from the Syrian government, opposition, and civil society who represent the newly formed Syrian Constitutional Committee planned to reconvene for another round on Nov. 25. The hope is that the Geneva talks will serve as a door opener for more meaningful dialogue between the major players—Assad, Russia, Turkey and the United States—or at least as a vehicle by which the West can sign off on any solution reached by the regional powers.  The Constitutional Committee is widely viewed as “the most promising however limited step forward on Syria,” a senior U.S. government official told Foreign Policy.  “Having a process is still seen as valuable—by some, just for the sake of having a process, and by others, because they hope it can become a vehicle for background understandings that are basically made between non-Syrians,” said Aron Lund, a fellow with the Century Foundation.  The ongoing conflict is expected to come up during a much-anticipated meeting this week in Washington between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  But experts and insiders say there is no clear path to a real political solution—and Assad has no incentive to compromise. The Syrian president has all but won the war militarily with the help of his Russian backers. Syria’s last rebel stronghold, in the northwestern province of Idlib, has been devastated by Russian and Syrian airstrikes and is now primarily controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an extremist group linked to al Qaeda. Meanwhile, the Syrian Kurdish militias, which maintain control of a large chunk of resource-rich land in the northeastern part of the country and argue they are the only indigenous party with any serious leverage over Assad, have been excluded from the Geneva talks due to a Turkish veto.  Assad’s negotiating hand has only been strengthened since Trump withdrew U.S. troops from Syria’s border with Turkey in early October, paving the way for a bloody attack on the Kurds. In the absence of U.S. support on the ground, the Kurds were forced to cut a deal with Assad for protection from the Turkish attack, prompting Russian and Syrian regime troops to flow into northeastern Syria for the first time in years. Russian and Turkish troops began joint patrols along a 6-mile-deep stretch of border to the west and east of the Turkish incursion under an Oct. 22 deal inked by Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  European powers—whose money will be vital if cash-strapped Damascus ever hopes to rebuild the country when the war ends—continue to condition any financial support on evidence of a commitment to a real political transition that would weaken Assad’s grip on power. But they wield a shrinking measure of influence over the shape of Syria’s future, a development that has been furthered by Washington’s wobbly military commitment in the region.  “I just see no reason why the Assad regime would change their behavior from their past processes through the Geneva processes, [particularly when they are] moving into parts of northern and eastern Syria without firing a bullet,” said Dana Stroul, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “What incentive do they have?”  Back in the summer of 2012, the United States and Russia negotiated the landmark Geneva Communiqué, in the presence of former U.N. Secretary-General and then-Syria envoy Kofi Annan. The Communiqué outlined a road map for a political transition in Syria, presumably ending the reign of the Assad dynasty.  The Communiqué envisioned the creation of a transitional government, drawn from the Syrian government and the opposition, with “full executive powers.” This transitional government was to be charged with reviewing the constitution and preparing the grounds for free and fair elections. However, the Communiqué specified that the new transitional governing body would be formed by the “mutual consent” of the parties, ultimately giving Assad a veto. As such, and even though Assad was at the time facing the real threat of military defeat, the agreement never took hold through subsequent rounds of negotiations between 2014 and today.  Russia’s entry into the war in September 2015 emboldened Assad, who has largely refused to negotiate any internal reform under UN auspices, let alone yield power to a transitional government. Instead, the Syrian government has promoted its own plan that subordinates a constitutional process and elections to its own control, with the aim of solidifying his grip on power.  Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s State Department, led by then-Secretary of State John Kerry, had some degree of success rallying the opposition groups into a more cohesive body. In December 2015, during a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Syrian groups, including previously unrepresented opposition militias, formed the High Negotiations Committee, led by former Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Farid Hijab and which has since been expanded and renamed the Syrian Negotiation Commission, Syria’s main opposition bloc.  But Assad has never regarded the splintered opposition as a legitimate negotiating power, U.S. and Syrian sources said. Since the Geneva talks began, each meeting essentially unfolded the same way. The sources described how during a meeting 2014 the regime refused to sit facing opposition representatives, so the delegates ended up seated in an L shape, with one table perpendicular to the other.  “All the regime did was sit there and read articles about the infiltration of the opposition on the ground by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” the first State Department official said.  “None of these meetings were serious,” said one Syrian analyst close to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council. “They spend the meetings making fun of each other.”  In early 2017, Russia launched a parallel peace effort in Astana (now Nur-Sultan), Kazakhstan, involving Assad, Turkey, and Iran, which led to agreements on a series of “de-escalation zones” around the country. Moscow conceived of Astana as a way to negotiate independent of the west, with the understanding that a formalized outcome at Geneva would be necessary for international recognition. But the West largely rejects the Astana process and continues to condition financial support and easing of sanctions on progress in Geneva.  Western diplomats hope Assad will eventually capitulate to their demands in order to get sanctions relief, reconstruction assistance, and normalization of relations with the West. But insiders say Assad’s position has not changed since peace talks between the regime and opposition forces began.  “There has never been a serious round of negotiations to resolve the Syrian conflict in Geneva,” the State Department official said. “The regime will destroy the entire country, they will destroy Damascus and everything else, before it negotiates under pressure any kind of reform.”  Even before Pedersen’s appointment, the British government privately questioned the wisdom of selecting a new U.N. envoy for Syria, on the grounds that it would create the impression of a diplomatic opening that didn’t exist.  Still, the lengthy negotiations have provided a measure of political cover to Syria and its principal military backer Russia, which have cited their support for the Geneva talks as evidence of their commitment to a peaceful settlement while prosecuting a brutal military offensive that has strengthened their military hand and terrorized Syrian civilians.  Russia first proposed the Constitutional Committee, the latest iteration of the Geneva talks, in January 2018 at a meeting in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi as part of the Astana process. The committee consists of 150 delegates—50 backed by Assad, 50 opposition representatives, and 50 members of civil society selected by the United Nations. A smaller group of 45 members has been selected to form a constitutional drafting committee.  U.N. officials say Pedersen and his team are not naive and that they recognize that the process will only deliver as much or as little as Assad’s government is willing to give.  “My hope is that the meetings of the Constitutional Committee can be a door opener to the broader political process,” said Geir Pedersen, the United Nations envoy for Syria.  “Of course the Constitutional Committee in itself is not a solution to the conflict. … You are all reminded about that every day when you see the developments on the ground,” Pedersen told reporters in Geneva on Nov. 8, following the first round of talks. “My hope is that the meetings of the Constitutional Committee can be a door opener to the broader political process.”  But on the eve of the first round of talks, the Syrian government sought to distance itself from the Constitutional Committee, contending that the Assad-backed delegates were not acting as members of the government and thus lacked the authority to hold him to any commitments made during the dialogue. Assad said as much during an Oct. 31 interview with the official Syrian Arab News Agency.  “The Syrian government is not part of these negotiations nor of these discussions,” Assad said, adding that the pro-Syrian government delegation “represents the viewpoint of the Syrian government” but cannot bind Damascus.  “Legally, we are not a part of the Constitutional Committee, and this does not imply the government’s recognition of any party,” Assad said.  The Syrian leader added that the participation of a pro-Syrian government group in the talks should not be interpreted as a sign that Damascus is committed the U.N.-brokered Geneva diplomatic process. He said he views the Russian-led diplomatic initiative, started in Sochi, as the only legitimate diplomatic way forward.  Assad views the Russian-led diplomatic initiative, started in Sochi, as the only legitimate diplomatic way forward.  The Syrian government-backed delegation to the Constitutional Committee, meanwhile, has made it clear that the Geneva talks will not result in a halt to war. “Our fight against terrorism is an ongoing war that we started before our meeting … and we will keep up the fight after our meeting until the liberation of the last inch of land of our precious homeland,” Ahmad Kuzbari, the head of the pro-government delegation, said late last month.  Meanwhile, the opposition groups represented at the talks—though backed by major powers, primarily Turkey—are fractured and have little power on the ground in Syria. The civil society group is also splintered, with disputes over its composition holding up the committee’s announcement for more than a year.  Nasr al-Hariri, the president of the Syrian Negotiation Commission, which appointed members of the opposition delegation to the Constitutional Committee, said “we feel slightly optimistic” after the first round of talks, despite what he characterized as an attempt by the government delegation to “waste time” by steering discussions away from talk of a new constitution.  The opposition delegation, he said, pressed the U.N. to focus the next round of talks primarily on the constitution, but he hoped the meetings would ultimately broaden to address some of the most intractable political matters, including the release of tens of thousands of detainees in government custody and the need for “a true and genuine political transition from dictatorship to democracy.”  “We can’t say there is a genuine transition in Syria without a new constitution or with the old constitution, which gives the regime, the president, any future president, all the power,” he added.  That seemed a tall order, given Assad’s lopsided military advantage over the armed opposition. But Hariri insisted that the Syrian people and the international community still wield considerable leverage over Damascus. “Without a genuine political transition,” he said, “Assad’s regime can’t normalize its relations with states, rejoin the Arab League, obtain relief from sanctions, or reconstruction [funds from the West].”  Some observers, however, doubt that Assad will be willing to sacrifice his power to improve his international standing.  “This would be hard under any circumstances, but when Assad is effectively winning the war [and] now he’s asked to go to the table to talk to opposition groups that basically control nothing in Syria … he doesn’t understand why he should do that,” Lund said.  But the Kurds argue that they are the only indigenous group that Assad will take seriously because their fighters still control a large swath of territory in northeastern Syria. In July 2018, a delegation led by Ilham Ahmed, SDC executive president, traveled to Damascus for negotiations with the Assad regime. There, Ahmed met Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad’s most trusted advisors—a far more senior Syrian government representative than any of the Assad-backed delegates who have traveled to Geneva.  The talks fizzled quickly and have not resumed, partially due to U.S. objections to direct negotiations of any form between Assad and the Kurds.  “[The United States] told her, ‘This will give Assad more legitimacy’ and ‘We will solve the problems between you and Turkey,’” the Syrian analyst said.  Instead of direct negotiations, the U.S. State Department pushed the Kurds to pressure Assad by partnering with the Turkish-backed opposition (TSO)—the very same groups that attacked the northwestern city of Afrin in 2018 and have terrorized the population of northeastern Syria in recent weeks. Despite the atrocities committed in Afrin, Ahmed agreed to meet with the TSO just weeks before the Oct. 6 phone call between Trump and Erdogan. But the TSO rejected the offer and later supported Erdogan’s invasion.  The senior government official said the State Department “neither discouraged nor encouraged” contact between the SDC and the regime, but “what we consistently did—and had [the right] under U.S. law to do—was to note that the regime was both an international pariah and target of many international and U.S. sanctions.” Therefore, the United States could not work with the Kurds in “any area where they were paired with the regime.”  If the SDC were to “throw their weight into the Assad camp, for example by joining the regime list in the Constitutional Committee, then we’d have to severely limit relations with SDC just like we do other regime backers.”  The Kurds believe they have significant economic leverage over Assad: With the help of U.S. troops, they have maintained control of Syria’s rich oil fields, which Assad is eyeing to boost the regime’s all but ruined economy.  Since the Turkish incursion, Ahmed has pushed to resume direct negotiations with the regime. The Kurds believe they have significant economic leverage over Assad: With the help of U.S. troops, they have maintained control of Syria’s rich oil fields, which Assad is eyeing to boost the regime’s all but ruined economy. They believe Assad’s Russian backers may support their efforts: Moscow is increasingly unhappy with the Syrian regime’s reliance on Shiite militias that now make up the backbone of its forces after the vast majority were killed in the civil war. The Alawite community, in particularly, is increasingly threatened by Iranian activity in Syria, including Tehran’s attempts to convert Alawites to Shiism.  Ahmed has put together a list of conditions to send to the regime, including the departure of all Iranian-backed Shiite militias from Syria, the Syrian analyst said.  “If the U.S. and Russia work together to push a direct negotiation between SDF and Assad, that will save the time and efforts of this useless Constitutional Committee,” the analyst said.  Although the State Department is unlikely to support direct negotiations between Assad and the Kurds, U.S. diplomats are quietly signaling that they may provide the Kurds more political backing in the Geneva talks. Responding to questions from Foreign Policy, a State Department spokesperson said the United States supports representation of “the populations of northeast Syria” at Geneva, though did not specifically mention the Kurds.  “We are focused on a Syrian-owned and Syrian-led political solution … which must include full representation for all Syrians in order to achieve a more peaceful and united Syria,” the spokesperson said. “U.S. officials have consistently made clear that this includes the populations of northeast Syria. We have intervened repeatedly with the U.N. to this end and will continue to do so.”  At some point, the reasoning goes, the United States, Russia, and other key powers will need to fashion some political settlement ending the conflict in Syria. The Constitutional Committee could provide a forum, under U.N. auspices, to bless a final peace deal.  For some opposition figures, the convening of the Constitutional Committee—despite its limitations—constitutes a victory of sorts because it confers a certain political status on a movement that has seen its political and military fortunes wane.  “In the end, when you see the regime sitting beside the opposition, it is giving the opposition legitimacy.”  “Any kind of process is a win for us,” a representative of the Syrian opposition coalition told Foreign Policy. “In the end, when you see the regime sitting beside the opposition, it is giving the opposition legitimacy” as a bona fide political force in Syria.  Translating seats at the diplomatic table into real influence is another thing. But for now, it’s pretty much the only diplomatic game in town.  “The Constitutional Committee may be a diplomatic fig leaf, but it is the best fig leaf available to the U.N. right now,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director for the International Crisis Group. “Geneva is unlikely to deliver much quickly, but as the military situation on the ground shifts, it is at least a potential channel for discussing a political settlement in future.”


fortruss--2019-01-01--What Peace Deal Right-Wing Continue to Murder Former Communist Militants in Colombia

What Peace Deal? Right-Wing Continue to Murder Former Communist Militants in Colombia  BOGOTA, Colombia – Since Colombia signed a peace agreement with rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) two years ago, 85 members of the former guerrilla movement were murdered, the United Nations said on Monday.  Between September 26 and December 26 of this year, “14 former FARC members were murdered,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his quarterly report on the mission of the global body to Colombia.  According to the Colombian special investigation unit, cited by the UN, those responsible for the murders “are illegal armed groups and criminal organizations”.  Most of these cases have been linked to the Gulf Clan drug trafficking group, which emerged from unarmed right-wing paramilitaries in 2006, as well as dissidents from the FARC, the guerrilla group of the National Liberation Army (ELN), and remnants of the now-defunct Marxist rebels of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).  The UN summoned Colombian President Iván Duque, a critic of the peace agreement signed by his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, to “reinforce the security plans and strategies for ex-combatants.”  In the report, Guterres said he was “hugely” concerned about the number of murders of social leaders and human rights defenders, saying that the UN has verified 163 of the 454 cases since the peace agreement was signed.  “Most of the murders were in zones abandoned by former FARC (fighters) and where there is limited state presence,” the UN report said.  Colombia’s human rights ombudsman estimates that 423 activists were murdered between 2016 and the end of November.  Transformed into a political party since the peace agreement, the FARC has repeatedly criticized the lack of security guarantees for its members.  While some 7,000 former combatants have laid down their weapons, Colombia’s peace and reconciliation commission estimates that there are 1,600 dissident rebels.  Colombia has been torn apart by more than half a century of armed conflict involving guerrillas, drug traffickers, paramilitaries and state forces, leaving 8 million people dead, missing or displaced.


foxnews--2019-07-28--Top Trump diplomat shares plans for future peace accords between Israelis Palestinians

Top Trump diplomat shares plans for future peace accords between Israelis, Palestinians

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Greenblatt spent 20 years as the top real estate lawyer for New York developer Donald Trump. He worked on numerous deals from his office in the gleaming Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.  But on a summer day this week Greenblatt was in another gleaming skyscraper several blocks away from his old office, this time at the United Nations, working on a geopolitical deal that has proven elusive even to the most seasoned diplomats. He addressed the United Nations Security Council on reaching a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and he had some blunt words for an institution that for decades has failed to resolve the conflict.  "We know that the Palestinians have seen promises made by some, and not kept. But President Trump and his administration desire to make the lives of everyone involved better," Greenblatt said.  "Peace will require honesty, and a willingness to consider new ideas as well as courage and hard compromises. This is a time for us to speak to each other candidly, not in stale slogans and talking points."  Greenblatt is the president's point man on peace in the Middle East, and in his address, Greenblatt called out the well-worn bromides of the international diplomats who have yielded little progress.  "We will only achieve peace by putting forth a plan that both sides hopefully will be interested enough and excited enough to engage on and negotiate on and reach the finish line," he told Fox News in an interview after his Security Council appearance.  "We won’t achieve peace by constantly referring to the tired talking points to international law that isn't clear on the subject, to international consensus which doesn't exist on this particular subject."  But despite the odds, he is optimistic.  BERNIE SANDERS: US POLICY IN MIDEAST CAN'T BE 'PRO-ISREAL, PRO-ISREAL, PRO-ISREAL'  "We want tremendous lives for the Palestinians. We want lives that mirror the lives of Israelis as long as we can keep everybody secure. We are not going to get there with slogans."  His U.N. visit came one month after the Trump administration sponsored a "Peace to Prosperity" workshop that was held in Bahrain. More than 300 officials, including those from Israel and Arab nations, mingled to chart out an unprecedented effort to bolster the Palestinian economy. The administration plan is to provide $50 billion for desperately needed economic development, that officials say would create 1 million jobs for the Palestinians and take the West Bank, and Gaza, into a new era as well as neighboring economies.  But the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, not only refused to negotiate...or even participate, they even briefly arrested a Palestinian businessman from Hebron because he attended the event. Abbas has broken off ties to the White House as a protest, in response to the administration moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last year.  "Not only did the Palestinian Authority boycott the conference themselves, they tried to undermine the conference by asking others not to go. What a tremendous opportunity that they missed. Our hope is though, that when they see the political plan, they'll be interested enough to realize that they shouldn't miss this opportunity," says Greenblatt. "I think we are at a unique time in history. We have a very unique president who's not only a huge supporter of Israel, a president who understands Israel’s security needs but a president who wants to help the Palestinians themselves."  He is confident that the Palestinian leadership will eventually come around and see that the admiration’s plans are in their interest.  "I think when they see the plan, they will see that. Nobody is here to force something on them that doesn’t work, but we are also, as you heard this morning in my remarks, direct enough to say what you've been promised is probably not achievable. Nobody can force a deal on either side but, similarly, the deal that you want is just not there, so the only way you are going to get better lives is by sitting down directly with the Israelis. None of us can get the Palestinians and the Israelis to agree on a deal if they don’t want to do that deal. It’s not for America, it’s not for the European Union, it's not for anyone who is interested in this conflict to make decisions for the Israelis or the Palestinians. We don’t live there, we don’t suffer there, we don’t fight there, we don't die there, it's really up to the two sides to do that."  TRUMP'S MIDEAST PEACE PLAN HINGES ON $50B INVESTMENT, OFFERS PALESTINE DEAL OF 'THE CENTURY'  Looming over the effort is the shadow of Iran, and Tehran's continued terrorist funding of Hamas and Hezbollah. With that in mind, Greenblatt calls any progress toward peace, "Iran's worst nightmare." And he is convinced that the Palestinians and Israelis... want to end the decades of strife.  "In the last two and a half years I've met so many ordinary Palestinians," Greenblatt says. "They want better lives. I'm not saying they don’t want many of the aspirations that they have been promised. But they are just as talented as Israelis, just as eager to have successful lives like Israelis, and I believe that when they see the plan they will realize what lies ahead, what many benefits they can get from the plan. The Israeli side is the same. They just want to live safely and securely. They already have a great economy. They are frustrated, they are skeptical just like the Palestinians and I hope that they too realize that the compromises that we are recommending, suggesting, because ultimately it is up to their government as well, are worth doing."  CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP  Greenblatt is heading back to the Middle East next week for follow up meetings on the plan. He will be accompanied by the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner and other officials. They will visit Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.  The 60-page political plan for both sides has not yet been released. But Greenblatt is confident that by proposing bold new ideas, President Trump will achieve a success that has long been sought but not yet sealed.