“Beyond Iraq: Envisioning a New U.S. Policy in the Middle East”

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Official Testimony of Ambassador Dennis Ross

to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

1828 L St. NW

Suite 1050

Washington, DC 20036

With the presidential campaign under full swing, voters might ask themselves which candidate would restore statecraft to the conduct of American foreign policy. Given the challenges we face internationally and our standing in the world, it is readily apparent that something must change in our foreign policy. Is statecraft the answer? Is statecraft even well understood? Some may think that statecraft involves knowing how to use all of the assets of the state—diplomatic, economic, military, intelligence, informational—to protect our interests worldwide. But suppose that the next president leads an administration that is expert in knowing how to integrate and use all these resources effectively. What happens if these tools are employed to fulfill objectives that make little sense or are simply unachievable? The short answer is that we will have bad foreign policy and bad statecraft.

The same is, of course, true if we have the right objectives but don’t know how to employ the tools and weight of the state to pursue them. Good statecraft requires matching concepts and the wherewithal to implement them. Bad statecraft and bad policies almost always reflects a mismatch between objectives and means.

Think bad statecraft is the exception? Consider Iraq. Our objectives never matched our means. The administration was never unified in its purpose or execution. Our assessment was faith-based not reality based, leaving the Bush administration assuming that everything would fall into place when Saddam was removed, not fall apart. When it fell apart the administration was left without a workable strategy and it has grappled for the last four years with trying to come up with one.

The larger purpose of the Bush administration has been democratic transformation, believing that ultimately the way to defeat terrorists is to produce democratic governments to replace the oppressive and corrupt regimes that breed anger and alienation throughout much of the Muslim world. Much like in Iraq, the President’s goals are laudable and far-reaching. The problem has been that the president promoted an ambitious agenda of transformation but has presided over an administration that has consistently sought to employ only minimalist means. Trying to get by on the cheap has characterized the administration’s approach whether it was in Iraq or Afghanistan or even on pushing a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In none of these cases did the administration understand what would be required to act on its goals. In none of these cases did the administration have a clear idea of what it was getting into or the obstacles it would have to overcome or the means it would need to do so. Statecraft does not require dispensing with ambitious objectives. But it does require seeing the world as it is not as we wish it were. It may be very important to transform the world, but any administration must understand reality before it can change it.

Past administrations have succeeded in pursuing ambitious objectives. With the Berlin wall coming down, the first Bush administration set an objective of unifying Germany in NATO. Few thought this possible because they thought Gorbachev and the Soviets could never accept it—after all, they would be swallowing not only the loss of their German ally but the integration of a unified Germany into the opposing bloc. Also, it was clear that the British and French, with leaders close to President Bush like Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand, were hesitant as well, fearing a unified Germany might come to dominate Europe.

And, yet President Bush, Secretary of State Baker, and National Security Advisor Scowcroft saw the stakes; they understood that nothing was going to prevent unification once the wall came down; that it was a mistake to make the Germans feel different and not trusted; that it was better to embed Germany in the institutions of Europe; and that a neutral Germany caught between the blocs would be a source of competition and instability if its neutrality led it to decide that it must ensure its own security by acquiring an independent nuclear capability.

President Bush and Secretary Baker acted quickly to establish the principles that should guide the approach to German unification internationally. They worked intensively to frame the objective so others would accept it. They developed a diplomatic mechanism (the 2 + 4 process involving the two Germanys and the U.S., the UK, the French, and Soviets) that brought the occupying powers together and permitted them to negotiate the terms and pace of unification while also allowing Soviet leader Gorbachev to show he had a hand in shaping the outcome. And through non-stop communication conducted over the course of countless trips and phone calls, the President and the Secretary fashioned a change in our NATO doctrine to give Gorbachev what he asked for: the ability to declare during his party congress that NATO was no longer an enemy.

A similarly intensive effort, reflected in repeated trips by the Secretary of State and visits and phone calls by the president—who became known as the “mad dialer” in the White House—characterized George H. W. Bush’s approach to developing the coalition for responding to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and its ouster from that country in 1991. Contrast the approach to Turkey at that time with the current Bush administration’s efforts to gain Turkish support for the war in Iraq.

In both cases, Turkish support was critical to the coalition and our military operations. In 1990, Secretary Baker made three trips to Turkey in the space of a few months and President Bush called Turkish President Turgut Ozal during this period close to sixty times—calls that became part of the public story in Turkey at the time. In the run-up to the war in 2003, the highest level visitor from the administration was the deputy secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz; useful but not a substitute for the secretary of state, particularly given the need to give Turkish leaders an explanation that our common effort was not simply about paving the way for the use of force.

High level visits are an essential part of statecraft, especially for coalition building. In the first instance, nothing replaces face-to-face discussions in which doubts and potential problems can be addressed. In addition, by their very nature, they give the host government a public explanation for its actions. The Turkish public was just as dubious about war with Iraq in 1990-91 as it was in 2003. But the Baker visits gave the Ozal leadership a platform to show it was raising its concerns and the US leadership was taking them into account—and Turkey was getting something for its support. Would better statecraft have made a difference in 2003? With the Turkish parliament rejecting the US request to stage forces from Turkey by three votes out of more than the 500 cast, it is certainly a possibility.

Clearly, given the world we face today, effective statecraft has never been more urgently needed. As we assess the challenges of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Arab-Israeli imbroglio, the struggle with radical Islamists, North Korea, Darfur—or even the rise of China—where can we confidently say that our objectives and our means are in sync? Where can we say that the Bush administration has defined its objectives clearly and in a way that others internationally—or even within the administration itself—fully accept? Where do we see the kind of intensive diplomatic and communication efforts that leave little to chance, avoid misunderstandings, and succeed in combining our means with those of others to increase our leverage and reduce that of our adversaries?

One might argue that Iraq casts a shadow over everything the administration does and limits its credibility with others. Perhaps, but the administration certainly retains leverage if it knows how to exercise it. If, for example, it is serious about preventing Iran from going nuclear then its diplomacy—incremental and deliberate at the UN Security Council—must match the frenetic pace of Iran’s efforts at uranium enrichment. If the administration is thinking about matching ends and means then its focus must shift outside the UN.

The Europeans, Japanese, Indians and the Arab Gulf states represent the economic lifeline to Iran. They see the use of force against Iran as worse than an Iran with nuclear weapons. If they thought their current posture of slowly ratcheting up pressures on Iran—and not cutting them off from credit guarantees, new investments, or provision of gasoline—made the use of force more and not less likely might not they change their behavior? Similarly, if the Bush administration offered to join negotiations now with Iran on the nuclear issue in return for these countries cutting the economic lifeline might not they agree to do so?

For the Palestinians today, the key question is whether they will have a secular future or an Islamist future. Our stake in a national, secular future for the Palestinians is very clear. Without that, there will be no prospect of peace, and Islamists will control the most evocative issue in the region. We should quietly be making that point with the Saudis. Pushing now for a national unity government will only strengthen Hamas, and Hamas's long-term success will mean that Iran will be able to use the Palestinian grievance and ongoing conflict as an instrument to keep the Saudis and others on the defensive.

Beyond this, our essential challenge is going to be how to ensure that Fatah succeeds. While many in Fatah understand the stakes and what is necessary, the call for new faces in Fatah means that the old faces have to be willing to step aside. There are no signs that they are ready to do so. Is Abbas ready to push them? It will go against his very nature to do so. But there is no alternative, and our role and new Middle East envoy Tony Blair's role will require constant pushing in this regard. But we can't just push. We must also deliver real resources. If there was one other refrain I heard from Palestinians, it was "Don't embrace Abbas and Fayyad unless you are also going to deliver real goods to them." Supporting them with great words will only destroy their credibility if we do not also deliver noticeable assistance that will at least improve the economic situation on the ground.

Results on the ground and real hopes will help Fatah. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would do well to keep this in mind. A credible negotiating process is one thing; a symbolic event like an international conference where only hard-line speeches are given that highlight how little prospect of agreement there is, and where there is no practical follow-up, is another. Palestinians are not looking for symbols now. They know the difference between symbols and reality. Let's hope the Bush administration does as well.

Ultimately, statecraft is about recognizing where we (and others) have leverage and knowing how to marshal it. That requires seeing the world as it is, adjusting to others when necessary, making sure they have an explanation for what they do, knowing how to employ coercion effectively, and recognizing when to employ carrots with our sticks. That is how one matches objectives and means, and our next president and his or her team will need to be a master of doing so.