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| Speaker: | Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations |
|---|---|
| Presider: | James F. Hoge, Editor, Foreign Affairs Magazine |
May 14, 2009
JIM HOGE: Thank you so much. This is Jim Hoge here, editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine.
And with me this morning is Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Abrams is a former senior director for democracy and human rights, senior director for the Near East, and deputy national security adviser handling Middle Eastern affairs in the George W. Bush administration. In the Reagan administration, he was assistant secretary of State for U.N. affairs, human rights, and Latin America. So as you can see, we have a very experienced hand with us this morning.
Welcome, Elliott Abrams.
ELLIOTT ABRAMS: Thanks. Good morning.
HOGE: The piece we're going to sort of focus on, at least at the beginning for this conversation, was in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, and its title was "The Power of the First Impression," by Elliott Abrams. And so we might start with what that title connotes. How important is it, Elliott, how these two get along, what predisposition they take and their attitude about each other? And why is this meeting, as you state in the piece, more important to Netanyahu than it is to Obama?
ABRAMS: I think it's more important, just to start with the end of this, for Netanyahu because, of course, America is more important to Israel and to a lot of other countries than they are to us. The United States remains, of course, the greatest world power, and for Israel and others the attitude we take toward them is absolutely critical.
And Netanyahu will be meeting Obama, not for the first time -- they met in Israel when Obama visited there, but for the first time as prime minister, and with a lot of issues on the table. And he will want to figure out what is Obama's real attitude. We've heard from a number of people in the administration, people who visited Israel, but what is Obama's real attitude on these key questions for Israel -- the Arab-Israeli dispute, the Palestinians, Iran? I think we don't know how much Obama cares about meetings like these. That is, how much weight does he put on personal relations with foreign leaders?
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: President Bush tended to put a lot of weight on it, for better or worse. I don't know whether Obama does. It's too soon. He's met an awful lot of leaders at summit meetings, one in Europe, one in the Caribbean. He's probably met 50 or 55 heads of government. But whether these meetings really matter to him and will change the way he makes policy, I think, is an open question.
HOGE: Yeah. As I recall from the campaign, he didn't make too much of a point of it but did make a point that foreign policy should not be too personally oriented, that it has to be based on interests and strategies that one is following. So I think it is an open question. And my guess is that he will be less enamored at putting too much weight on just the personal relationship than his predecessor.
ABRAMS: I agree with that.
I think there's another question here, just on Netanyahu.
HOGE: Sure.
ABRAMS: And that is that Netanyahu is right of center and Obama is left of center, and presumably President Obama has heard a number of critical things from aides of his about Netanyahu. So one question is whether Netanyahu will be able to break through that and establish at least a good personal rapport, even if that rapport doesn't have a huge impact on policy.
HOGE: Right. Well, Obama did, in one comment he made when he met Netanyahu the first time, was to say you're coming from the right, I'm coming from the left, but we're both pragmatists.
ABRAMS: Yup.
HOGE: And I think Bibi has been on some issues. But how free is he to really move the chess pieces, given the religious national coalition partners that constitute his government?
ABRAMS: He's probably -- yeah, that's a very good question. I think he's probably got more difficulty within the Cabinet than in the Knesset or in the country at large, because he has an opposition in the Kadima Party under Tzipi Livni that would probably give him a little bit of flexibility to move those chess pieces.
And I actually think that on Palestinian issues, so would Foreign Minister Lieberman.
The religious parties maybe, or some of them, would be tougher on a number of Israeli-Palestinian issues.
So he has -- like all of his predecessors, he's got to worry a lot about politics within his Cabinet.
HOGE: Now Bibi's in Washington, May 18th. And about two weeks after that, Obama goes to Cairo to give his heralded speech to the Muslim world. Is there a connection between these two? Does Obama have to have something coming out of the May 18th meeting to better position him before he gives that speech?
ABRAMS: Yes. He's got one other meeting, or maybe even two, in the middle. He's got President Mubarak coming here, I think --
HOGE: That's right.
ABRAMS: -- toward the very end of May.
HOGE: And I think the king of Jordan, doesn't he?
ABRAMS: King of Jordan was here.
HOGE: That's right. He was here.
ABRAMS: So that was the first one.
HOGE: Yeah.
ABRAMS: And then he's got President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority --
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: -- coming roughly around the time of Mubarak in late May, early June.
And he'll -- he clearly wants to get those -- I was going to say "out of the way," but that's not really -- he wants to have them completed and he wants to have talked to those people prior to figuring out what to say in Cairo, because he is going to address, among other issues, the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And I think he is going to want to be able to say that something's afoot. There is some progress being made. Talks between the Israelis and Palestinians are going to start; changes on the West Bank are going soon to be visible. I think he's going to want something concrete to put in that speech.
HOGE: Yeah.
Now let's go to the peace. One point you make is that these two will be meeting, coming with decidedly different priorities. Bibi has chosen to make the Iran nuclear program an almost all-or-nothing issue. Either it gets stopped or we're in deep trouble, and we're not quite sure what Israel will do. And it's based on his passionate belief or conviction that Israel will be in danger of being exterminated if Iran is allowed to go nuclear.
Barack comes in ssaying that getting the peace process started and making some progress is the centerpiece for his whole Middle East strategy. How much give do you think there can be between these two, coming from such different places on the compass?
ABRAMS: I think they're going to have to agree to disagree on the relationship between the --
HOGE: Between Iran and the peace process.
ABRAMS: -- peace process and Iran, yup, because they have -- each one has it exactly the opposite way from the other.
HOGE: Yup.
ABRAMS: General Jones, the national security adviser, when he was on TV on Sunday, said flat out that if you think that Iran is an existential issue for Israel, then you have to want progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, though he didn't explain why that would be the case. He stated it as a flat fact.
Netanyahu believes that Israel really can't make much in the way of concessions to the Palestinians with this immense Iranian threat hanging over it.
The -- and his argument is that if you were to give up territory to Syria -- the Golan Heights -- or if you were to get out of the West Bank, with Iran pumping money and guns into Hamas and Hezbollah, you run the risk -- Israel runs the risk that those areas would come under Iranian influence and under terrorist control --
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: And therefore it's too dangerous.
So they're going to have to talk that through. But even if they don't reach an agreement on it, I think they should be able to agree on certain pragmatic steps that might be taken in the short run, both for the president's trip and to give George Mitchell something to work with.
HOGE: Yeah. Now, there's a second -- and it is decidedly second -- sort of priority in Netanyahu's posture. He's quiet -- he's silent, anyway -- on the two-state solution; that is, he's silent on whether there really should be a Palestinian state or not.
The position he seems to have taken is, there's nobody to partner with on such a venture at the moment. The Palestinian situation is too discombobulated, between Hamas and a fading Fatah. And so he has offered up sort of an interim program of being willing to foster economic aid, security measures, political talks, with the Palestinians -- if successful, would then make it possible to think about two states, rather than one state plus these territories. Is that -- is that a reasonable posture? Is it one that's going to persuade anybody, like moderate Arab states, to come along?
ABRAMS: Well, I think he's -- many Israelis would say that you can't have a Palestinian state yet. You can't have it tomorrow morning. And the reason you can't -- the reasons you've stated: the divisions between Fatah and Hamas --
HOGE: Yeah.
ABRAMS: -- the weakness of Fatah, the inability of the Palestinian security forces today to prevent terrorism from the West Bank. But those things can be overcome, and when they are overcome, then there should be a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has not yet, as prime minister, been willing to say that. He's not been willing to say --
HOGE: Nope, he has not.
ABRAMS: -- what should happen when they're overcome. And I cannot tell whether this is because he's saving that for President Obama and he'll give -- he'll, in a sense, give him that and then say it when he's in Washington or after returning from Washington -- or whether what -- he doesn't really -- maybe it's a matter of principle; that is, he does not believe that this is the only outcome, and that everybody should be totally committed to that outcome. He may be thinking, for example, of some kind of affiliation between the West Bank and Jordan, so that there'd be less than full statehood.
HOGE: Yeah.
ABRAMS: And he seems to be -- it's interesting, because Sharon made a flat commitment to Palestinian statehood in the road map.
HOGE: That's right.
ABRAMS: And my understanding of the Netanyahu government's position is that they accept the road map. So I think this is something that's going to have to be clarified when Netanyahu is here.
HOGE: Yeah.
Let's turn it around for a minute. They have a -- Israel's just got through an election, and they'll now have a somewhat fragile coalition government. Iran is about to have a presidential election in June. Does it make a difference who wins? Ahmadinejad would appear to be in the lead, but he's got some fairly strong opponents this time. And all three of them, the two reform candidates and the other conservative candidate, are signalling that they would like to have a better relationship with the West, that they don't want to fool around with the nonsense about the Holocaust. Will it make a difference which one of these guys comes in?
ABRAMS: I think it'll make a difference --
HOGE: In terms of the peace process.
ABRAMS: Ahmadinejad is -- yeah, if he loses --
HOGE: Yeah.
ABRAMS: From the Israeli point of view, there's a danger here, and that is that in the United States and in Europe, and even in Russia and China, there is a recognition that he is dangerous guy, Ahmadinejad --
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: -- and that his rhetoric is just beyond the pale and unacceptable. And it helps build the image of Iran as a great risk, as a danger.
If he is defeated, even if he is defeated by another conservative or hard-liner, it's going to make it tougher to persuade people that Iran is a great risk, because people are going to say: Well, part of that was Ahmadinejad. He's gone. We need to give this new guy a chance. You can't land on him the first morning he takes office. Let's start talking. Let's see.
The Israelis will argue that it hardly matters, because nuclear policy is made by the Supreme Leader --
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: -- Ayatollah Khamenei. But the argument -- there are -- they will have a harder time, I think, persuading people that the Iranian risk is just around the corner, particularly people in Europe.
I think it won't matter that much for this administration. It probably makes life a little bit easier, in this sense. They have already said they want to engage diplomatically with Iran and that if that engagement fails to stop their nuclear program, we will move to what Secretary Clinton called crippling sanctions. So presumably, no matter who's president of Iran, they would follow that policy line.
HOGE: Yeah.
Let's talk about the nuclear program for a moment. Getting crippling sanctions is a very tough thing to do. Russia and China are hard to persuade. There seems to be a difference in the U.S. position and the Iranian position on how much time we may have. Israel is saying it's -- there could be nuclear weapons capability within months. We're saying probably 2011 and beyond.
And in addition to that, my question would be this. If Iran was to get to the point, of having the capability for making nuclear weapons, and then stops, doesn't actually produce them, just is in position to do so, would that make a difference? Or does the Netanyahu government still think it's an existential threat?
ABRAMS: Well, I don't think we know fully the answers to those questions.
On the timing question, I don't think we're all that far apart. It's just that we are doing a likeliest-case analysis. And the Israelis are doing a worst-case analysis.
(Cross talk.)
HOGE: I think if I was in Israel, I'd do the worst-case too.
ABRAMS: Yeah, and that leaves you with, you know, with a difference of a year or two. But we're all essentially talking about 2010 or 2011, let's talk about something like that. And people have suggested that what Iran may be doing is what's called the Japanese or German option.
That is, there's no question that Japan or Germany could make a nuclear weapon. But they have chosen not to. And they could make one probably pretty quickly too.
HOGE: Certainly Japan could. They have all the plutonium in the world sitting --
ABRAMS: Yeah, so it's a matter of, people say, turning the screw. You know, it's a little more complicated than that. But they certainly could do it in short order.
We don't know yet whether Iran would be satisfied mastering the enrichment technology and then stopping or whether they are really intent on making a nuclear weapon, going all the way, in the way that North Korea did.
HOGE: Right. No, we don't know that, do we?
ABRAMS: We just don't know. And that's something that presumably the Obama administration would like to find out more about, through its discussions with --
HOGE: Now, you know, another thing we don't really know is how seriously to take Netanyahu's warning -- I take it that it's a warning -- that if nuclear capability comes to Iran, and nobody else acts, Israel will have to, i.e., with military strength.
ABRAMS: Yeah. As you know, I suggested in the article that I think we should take that very seriously for two reasons.
The first is, the Israelis fear the possibility that Iran would use that weapon. Former President Rafsanjani called Israel a one-bomb country.
(Cross talk.)
HOGE: He's good at soundbites.
ABRAMS: Pardon.
HOGE: I said, he's good at soundbites.
ABRAMS: Yes.
There's another reason too, which has been expressed by Israelis. And that is that if Iran had a weapon and continued to make the kind of threats that it does today, the Supreme Leader recently called Israel a cancerous tumor, and we all know what you need to do about cancerous tumors.
Under those kinds of threats of nuclear war, every day, the morale of Israeli society would begin to be affected. You would have an effect. You would lower immigration. You would increase emigration. People would think, what kind of a future do we have here? So it would have a tremendous effect, even if it were never used.
HOGE: One last question, then we'll turn to our listeners.
How much difference might it make, to Iranian attitudes about the United States, us being the Great Satan, that we are trying to establish a less threatening, less conditional approach to Iran?
Now, I know, a lot of people in Iran are making money off of the way things are now. And others ideologically see it as the core of staying in power.
So can we really make a difference in the way we behave in what they are likely to do?
ABRAMS: Again, that's a very hard question to answer. First, I would say that the casting of the United States as the Great Satan does not seem to be universal in Iran.
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: The regime is not that popular. Seventy percent of the population is under the age of 30. They seem to want bluejeans more than denunciations of the U.S. But the view of the U.S. as the Great Satan certainly is the regime's view. And in fact, I think one would have to say that hatred of the United States and of Israel and oppression of women are probably the three pillars of this regime. And removing one of those pillars makes them pretty nervous.
HOGE: Uh-huh.
ABRAMS: So I think the regime is going to be hard to persuade to accept the United States as a non-hostile power.
HOGE: Yeah.
ABRAMS: Because it's really part of their -- their identity as a regime: They're anti-American.
HOGE: Right. Well, on that note, let's turn to the audience, and see what questions we have for you from our listeners.
OPERATOR: Thank you. At this time, we will open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press the "star" key, followed by the "1" key on your touchtone phone now. Questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, press "star-2."
Our first question comes from Martin Landler (ph) with The New York Times.
QUESTIONER: Good morning, gentlemen. Mr. Abrams, I was wondering whether you could react to two things that have been sort of in the air in the past couple of weeks on the U.S. side. One is this supplementary language that went up to the Hill having to do with, you know, the flexibility on a Palestinian unity government, and whether there's a scenario whereby you could have Hamas cabinet members and a government that could be recognized by the U.S.; what that tells you about the U.S. administration's approach.
And then secondly, the discussion of whether Israel should be required to sign on to the NPT Treaty, which, as you know, came up recently also in some remarks by U.S. officials.
Are these things that we ought to attach significant importance to, or are they sort of fairly incremental pieces in the evolving U.S. policy?
ABRAMS: I think we should attach importance even though they are -- well, the first one, anyway, is more incremental. When Hamas won the election, there was an effort to put together a government, a national unity government that did not have any Hamas members in it, but that had what you might call fellow travelers in it. And I think what the administration is trying to signal here is that there may be some combinations or permutations that it would be willing to accept.
For example, people have talked about a case where individual members of Hamas would say, "Whatever Hamas says, I personally accept Camp David and Oslo and all previous commitments, and I'm committed to coexistence and a two-state solution."
So the administration, I think, is trying to give itself a little bit of -- and give President Abbas a little bit more flexibility. This, needless to say, makes the Israelis nervous.
The second part of your question, though, makes them even more nervous. We, as a government, have not talked about Israel's supposed nuclear capabilities. We never have. We have always said this is not something we're willing to discuss; it's not something the Israeli government discusses either.
And there was at least one statement by Rose Gottemoeller about Israel and the NPT that really caught their attention, because the Israeli view is that they're in a very dangerous situation in the world; they have, at least in the case of Iran, an enemy that says Israel should be eliminated; and for the United States to start talking about Israel having a nuclear deterrent and about Israel someday getting rid of that nuclear deterrent would be a change in U.S. policy that would, I think, be unacceptable to any Israeli government.
QUESTIONER: Thanks.
HOGE: Okay. Next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Raviv with CBS Radio.
QUESTIONER: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for doing this phone conference. Could I have just a -- kind of an overall remark, please, from both of you on -- the big question as to whether this coming Monday probably we'll see, we'll feel some clash, some friction between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu, or there may be disagreements behind closed doors and we won't see and feel it? What do you think?
HOGE: Elliott?
ABRAMS: I think they will both try to put the best face forward. I don't think that, at this point, it does much good for either man -- certainly it doesn't for Netanyahu -- to appear to be in a clash. I think the question that emerges, really, is day two and day three: What are the kinds of leaks you get, particularly from the White House, about the nature of the meeting? If you get leaks on Monday that suggest it was a very tough and difficult meeting, then that's a very interesting insight into the nature of the relationship with Netanyahu that the White House would have chosen. I don't think you'll get that.
I think that it's just -- both -- it's rarely in the interest of people coming to the White House or for the White House itself to want to say, "Oh, what a terrible meeting we just had." It's a pretty rare occurrence, and I doubt you'll see it Monday.
HOGE: I agree very much with all of that. I think if this was the first Netanyahu government, way back, that there might have been a real clash, and there might have been a follow-up of charges, if not directly from either of them, from parties to them. But the Netanyahu this time -- (audio break) -- more disciplined. Probably his pragmatic streak is closer to the surface. And I see nothing in it for him to come out of the meeting -- even if they disagree or cannot agree on major issues, but to come out of the meeting without putting a constructive face on it just strikes me as dumb, and neither one of these men are dumb.
ABRAMS: I would just add one other thing, and that is that I assume that part of this meeting is going to be one-on-one. The Israelis almost always ask for that, and it's a fairly typical thing to do with Oval Office meetings, either at the beginning or at the end of it.
So the staffs, who are more inclined to leak anyway, on both sides, may not even see the most important part of the meeting, which could be, for example, a discussion of Iran. That may be saved for the one-on-one meeting.
HOGE: Okay.
Another question?
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Thomas Cantaloube with MediaPart.
QUESTIONER: Hi. I want to ask you a two-part question. Is it important for the Obama administration that Netanyahu comes to Washington and accepts the road map? Or does -- the Americans are already thinking about something else in the road map, which -- and yet it wasn't really followed by anyone.
ABRAMS: I think that they want him to accept the -- what they view as the essence of the road map, which is the two-state solution -- negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority toward the creation a Palestinian state.
I think that if he were to say, "Look, that's my view; I accept that; I think the road map is a little bit outmoded now; you know, it was five years ago," I don't think they'd have huge trouble with that. I think it's the underlying principles that they want him to endorse.
I would just say one further thing, which is that since the Israeli government accepted the road map, under Prime Minister Sharon, it may actually be easier for Netanyahu to endorse the road map and simply say, "Of course I accept the road map as part of Israel's policy; it was accepted by the cabinet, by the Knesset." And that allows him to, in a sense, accept two-state solution as a goal without making it something that he is newly endorsing.
HOGE: Okay. Next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you.
Our next question comes from Francois Clemenceau with Europe One Radio.
QUESTIONER: Good morning. What I would like to know, speaking about leaks, what do you think about the one we've seen in the press these recent days about General Jones saying that he would like to force Netanyahu to accept, you know, some concessions during this coming meeting with President Obama?
ABRAMS: Well, it isn't what General Jones said of course on TV on Sunday.
QUESTIONER: No, no, it was what, you know, he was supposed to have written in a telegram.
ABRAMS: Right.
QUESTIONER: And that has been relayed by a foreign minister in Europe.
ABRAMS: Yeah. You know, I think the important part of this meeting is that we're going to find out more and the Israelis are going to find out more about what the president thinks. I think, with all due respect to General Jones, his view of -- if that is his view of it, he may or may not be able to persuade the president of it. And the president has a lot of advisers -- at the NSC, at the State Department, the White House staff. And so I'm -- I think the Israelis are probably not all that troubled by that leak. What -- you know, what they really need to focus on is what does the president think.
QUESTIONER: But do you think that there is a common view among these advisers that President Obama should do something comparable to what President Bush Senior did with Shamir 20 years ago, before the Madrid conference?
ABRAMS: I don't think that. I think the two people who have had the most exposure to players in the region and Arab and Israeli are Secretary Clinton and Senator Mitchell, the special envoy. And as near as I can make out, both of them have come away impressed by the size of the problem of Iran, as seen by Arabs as well as Israelis, and impressed by the difficulty in moving forward very fast in Israeli- Palestinian negotiations, due to all the obvious problems -- the Hamas control of Gaza, the weakness of Fatah, the division between Hamas and Fatah, the weakness of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.
And neither of them seems to think that anything could be done very quickly and that this kind of pressure on Israel would be very productive. That's -- that is my impression.
HOGE: Yeah. Just for the record -- 20 years ago, what the George Bush of that time did was to put overt pressure on Israel by using money, loans and holding them up. And I think you just said, Elliott, that that is not likely to be the road we're going to go down, certainly not anytime soon --
ABRAMS: Yup.
HOGE: -- in this administration.
Next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you.
Our next question comes from Michael Goodwin with New York Daily News.
QUESTIONER: Good morning. First I want to say how much I enjoyed the journal piece, Mr. Abrams.
ABRAMS: Thank you. Thank you.
QUESTIONER: I really agreed.
My question has to do with the linkage and the perception that there is a linkage between the Palestinian and Israeli peace talks, whether it is a peace, and Iran and the nuclear program.
And could you clarify what you think the Obama administration sees is -- as the linkage? In other words, do they assume that if the Palestinians and Israelis make peace, Iran will give up its nuclear program?
ABRAMS: I doubt that they assume that, although it's -- you know, General Jones's statement on Sunday was a little bit, I think, simplistic on that question in suggesting that the solution to the Iranian nuclear threat is to be found in the West Bank.
HOGE: Right.
ABRAMS: But the -- I'm not sure how much linkage the administration thinks there is. My impression is that they believe that their ability to work with the Arab states will be enhanced if there is some kind of peace process under way that Arab governments can point to and -- maybe not because it's solving anything, but because at least it is moving the Israeli-Palestinian issue off the front burner.
It's often seemed to me that what is clearly the worst thing for Arab governments is violence between Israelis and Palestinians. And if there is no violence, or very little, and there are negotiations under way, then they're able to say the issue is being managed, and they can turn to other questions of interest. And Iran is obviously a prime one now for a lot of our friends in the Arab world.
So I think the administration believes there is a kind of diplomatic linkage.
They need to figure out a way to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian problem and show progress, so that Arab governments can turn to the Iranian problem and make that -- allow that to be the top issue.
HOGE: Elliott, on that issue of linkage and trying to get Arab governments to help on the peace process, there's been a lot of flurry about reinvigorating a Syrian initiative. And we recently had two high-level officials there.
What should we take from those recent meetings? Does this look like a promising venture or not?
ABRAMS: I think it's promising, if you want diplomacy. But I don't think it's promising, if you want an actual solution.
I think it's in the interests of the United States, interests of Syria and the interests of Israel for there to be a Syrian-Israeli negotiation. I think it's in Netanyahu's interest and in Assad's interest.
And therefore I assume that some kind of negotiation will recommence. But I don't see it leading very far, because I don't see the Israelis being willing to give up Golan, as long as Syria is in this kind of close relationship with Iran and Hezbollah.
And I don't see Syria right now willing to break that close relationship with Iran and Hezbollah. So it doesn't seem to me that the underlying conditions are there that will permit an agreement to be reached.
HOGE: Okay.
Next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you.
Our next question comes from Judy Miller with the Manhattan Institute City Journal.
QUESTIONER: Hi, Mr. Abrams.
ABRAMS: Hi.
QUESTIONER: I wanted to ask you, to draw you out a little more, on the possibility of sanctions and the discussion the two of them might have.
Is it conceivable in your mind that Netanyahu will press for a commitment from Russia and China, on sanctions, as a precondition, some kind of precondition, for talks?
In other words, might the Israelis try a kind of back-door approach, to slowing down a negotiation or a diplomatic overture by saying, look, if you have nothing to offer on the other side, if we can't get sanctions, what's the point of diplomacy? Or do you think he'll just go with it?
ABRAMS: I think he -- I don't think he'll try to slow it down. I think, in a certain sense, he'll try to speed it up and end it faster.
I would think his focus will be on trying to persuade President Obama to have a time limit, on negotiations with Iran, because the Israeli fear is that the Iranians will just drag it out, while they are happily spinning centrifuges.
So I think what Netanyahu is likely to say is, go ahead and try it; good luck; but when do you plan to say this experiment has failed and to turn to the sanctions route? And then they can have a good discussion about sanctions and, you know, what does the administration have up its sleeve.
HOGE: Okay.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jessie Ailmer (ph) with BBC.
QUESTIONER: Yes, hi. Thank you. I just wanted to know if you could give us your opinion on -- what do you think the new Obama administration -- or do you think the new administration has any more leverage vis-a-vis the Israeli government, that the Bush administration did not have when it comes to those American demands to Israel that, from my understanding, are still the same when it comes to the issue of settlements and the issue of Jerusalem? What does this new administration have as leverage, compared to the past one?
ABRAMS: I think the fundamental leverage of any administration is that United States is Israel's closest and strongest ally by far. Israel's relations with other countries, including in Europe, rise and fall. Some of the other countries with which they have good relations, like Canada or Australia, are not in a position to do all that much to help Israel, except in the UN General Assembly.
So the United States is their critical ally, and the -- and any American president has the ability to have an influence over their policy.
I think, however, that I would say, as someone who worked for the Bush administration, that President Bush felt that if he made it clear to the Israelis that he, in a sense, had their back on security issues, that he understood their security predicament completely, that he sympathized with it, that he understood that, for them, sympathy came -- that -- excuse me -- security came first, then he would be able to talk to them more effectively about what could be done. And I think President Bush would argue -- I would argue -- that it was that attitude that allowed Prime Minister Sharon to get out of Gaza.
And I think the question really is whether pressure is what leads the Israelis to be willing to try something new, or security is what leads them to be willing to try something new. I think one thing they're very interested in, and that he and President Obama can agree on, is the work the United States is doing to improve the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, for example. That's something that's in everybody's interest. The more of it there is, the better. And it does lay a possible foundation for a pullback of Israeli positions in the West Bank. But I think that's the kind of thing that maximizes American influence.
The mere flat-out exertion of pressure, without giving the impression that you really understand the situation the Israelis are in and how they see it, I think it's unlikely to be successful.
QUESTIONER: Okay. Can you just elaborate a little bit? When you say pressure, what kind of pressure, I mean, exactly are you talking about?
ABRAMS: What kind of pressure could the United States bring to bear?
QUESTIONER: Yeah. I mean, for example, is -- I mean, the issue of, like, U.S. aid to Israel, which is the number-one aid, I mean is this even on the table as a tool? What are the tools to pressure Israel that you can do without alienating them as a -- ?
ABRAMS: Well, there are -- I mean, there are, I guess I'd say, theoretical tools and real tools. For example, the aid levels are a theoretical tool, but in reality, there's very strong support in Congress for those aid levels, and it's not clear that the president could, in reality, reduce them.
I think there is -- diplomatically there are certainly things you can do. I mean, the United States is the main supporter of Israel in the United Nations, certainly the most influential supporter. And the willingness of the United States to block any action that is what they would view as excessively critical of Israel in the U.N. is important and will be important. And if the Israelis are looking around a corner and thinking that they may, if everything else fails, have to strike the Iranian nuclear program, they're going to want to know what the United States will be going to do at that point to help protect them diplomatically, economically, from possible effects of that strike.
But I think I would add one other thing. And this is perhaps the most effective sanction of all. Israelis know that their most important friend in the world is the United States. And it hurts an Israeli prime minister in domestic politics if it seems that he has a bad relationship with the U.S. and and with the U.S. president It certainly has in the past contributed to the defeat of Israeli political candidates, including Mr. Netanyahu. So the attitude the U.S. takes is itself a form of pressure because it matters in domestic politics in Israel.
HOGE: Elliott, I got cut out of there for a bit, through the mysteries of telephoning, but I'm back, so I missed that round. But let me ask you this. Is it totally out of the question, in your opinion, that if Iran does meet nuclear capability, that a policy of deterrence and containment would be saleable to all the parties involved and would be at least worth considering?
ABRAMS: I don't think that it would -- is likely to satisfy the Israelis. I think, you know, it's more likely to be proposed by the others in the P-5-plus-one group, which would certainly ask the question of what could be done. You know, and there are things, obviously, that one could try to do to deter Iran to strengthen Western forces in the region, to strengthen Israeli forces and an Israeli second-strike capability. But I think that the Israeli view is that deterrence models based on the Soviet Union and China and the Cold War don't work with an essentially theocratic regime, which has many times stated that it wishes to eliminate the state of Israel. I don't think that they would -- I think they would worry a lot about that -- the beginning of that discussion because it would telegraph to them that the U.S. has given up on trying to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. It also telegraphs it to Iran. And the Israelis would be very disturbed by that.
HOGE: Okay, next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Doyle McManus with Los Angeles Times.
QUESTIONER: Thanks very much. Two related questions on Iran.
Mr. Abrams, you raised the possibility that Iran may be going to a Japanese-style nuclear capability without -- or nuclear potentiality without actual weaponization. So, question one, is -- would the Israeli government see that also as an existential threat? And do they have any question -- is there any question of where the Obama administration is on that issue?
And my second question is, in your excellent piece in The Wall Street Journal, you suggested that Israel is considering a decision right now on whether to strike Iran militarily, and essentially weighing what the likely Iranian military response might be. I want to drag out a little more on that. How imminent do you think such a decision might be? Would an Israeli military strike at this point be in Israel's national interest if the Iranian response would fall below an existential threat? And is there any set of reactions or misreactions or decisions out of these meetings with Obama that could push Israel closer to deciding in favor of a military strike?
ABRAMS: A full examination of those questions, Doyle, is sort of -- would require a book-length treatise, so I'm going to have to, you know, do a once-over because they're very, very hard questions. Let me take the second one first.
When we talk about "imminent," I think we mean, you know, this spring, this summer. I don't believe that the Israelis are -- I don't believe the Israelis are contemplating that as their -- as their timetable.
I don't believe they think that the window is closing quite that quickly. People do argue about, you know, what is the final moment when you could stop them, but it seems to me -- to me -- to be a 2010 question, not a 2009 question.
Now, how could we -- how could we delay the moment at which the Israelis feel they need to make that decision? Well, one way would be to slow down the Iranian program. And the Iranian program has gone over the years in fits and starts. There have been moments when they suspended enrichment. If the Iranians were to suspend their program and in a sense stop the clock -- for example, during negotiations -- then that obviously delays the moment at which Israel might feel it needs to make a decision.
Another key question here is, what do the Israelis make of the U.S. view? If the Israelis think, you know, that we are focusing on the question of deterring a nuclear Iran, then they will reach the conclusion that we are in a sense out of the game of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. I don't think they have reached that conclusion yet, but that is a question to ask about the development of U.S. policy toward Iran in the Obama administration.
I don't think we really know what the policy is yet. They have had a policy review underway. Dennis Ross has recently been out in the Gulf. And I don't -- they've not really announced a -- a policy yet. But the Israelis will be trying to figure that out in the discussions with President Obama.
Now, you asked at the beginning what about this -- what is our attitude and what is the Israeli attitude toward a possible Iranian near-capability, the one screw to turn? The Obama administration has not stated what its view is. That is, it has said that it doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon and that the enrichment should stop right now, but it hasn't really addressed questions like that; like, in a negotiation, would you permit Iran to have zero centrifuges, or would you say, "Well, you can keep a thousand centrifuges"? Nor should they address those. I mean, if these are things that are going to be negotiated, then they'd be nuts to telegraph what their bottom line is now. And they're right not to have done it.
But I think the difference here is, is that some countries will be willing to say it's a victory for us if Iran does not actually possess a nuclear weapon.
Our next question comes from Tim Sullivan with RealClearPolitics.
QUESTIONER: Good morning, Mr. Abrams. Thanks for taking the time this morning.
I would like to just perhaps follow up on the point you made earlier about the Non-Proliferation Treaty. You had mentioned that guarantees of security tend to work better with Israeli governments than just outright pressure. So I was wondering, if you can just elaborate, is there -- is it your sense that there is no condition under which the Israelis would agree to NPT compliance if it meant disarming the Iranians and perhaps creating sort of an umbrella in the region?
ABRAMS: I think the Israelis would -- the problem with discussing this, first, is that the U.S. has always been reluctant to discuss the question of whether Israel has a nuclear deterrent, and the Israelis have been even more reluctant. And when you discuss the NPT, you are discussing the question of whether there is an Israeli nuclear program.
But if you assume that there is an Israeli nuclear program, then you have to assume they created it because they thought that it was crucial to their survival for the same reason that, for example, Pakistan created one. And it -- I wonder what circumstances, then, you would bring into being that would so persuade the Israelis that there is no threat to their survival that they'd be willing to give up this alleged deterrent. Words won't do it.
So I just -- it seems to me that it's an exceptionally delicate thing in that the Israelis are likely to say, if the U.S. raises it, that they're unwilling to have a discussion of this in public, and that if there's going to be any discussion of it, it would have to be a secret discussion with the U.S.
HOGE: Next question.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Indira Lakshmanan with Bloomberg News.
QUESTIONER: Hi, Mr. Abrams.
I don't know if I might have missed this at the top of the call, but I'm interested in you putting in perspective what you think the Obama administration is going to try to do, starting with the Netanyahu visit but continuing on with the other high-profile Middle Eastern visits this month, on this question of a comprehensive regional peace, which they've talked so much about. Given that Arab -- I mean, Israeli-Palestinian peace in itself has not been achievable, are they right to go big-ball like this and try to go for regional peace? And what do you think they're asking for, demanding, or can feasibly achieve?
ABRAMS: It isn't clear to me whether they really want to talk about this or do something about it and make it an actual near- term policy goal and my view is that it won't work, that you're not going to be able at this point to get some kind of great regional confab that is likely to make progress.
I just don't see that the grounds have been laid. I understand the argument that everything is related to everything else, but that has traditionally tended to mean that if you try to do them all at once, you get nowhere with anything.
There has been a sense that, well, we'll have a Lebanese-Israel track, we'll have a Syrian-Israel track, we'll have a Palestinian- Israel track, and then we'll have all the Arabs with Israel, too. I don't see how that works. I don't believe, as I said, that I think there is right now a foundation for real progress between Israel and Syria, and as long as that's true, you're not going to make any serious progress on the Lebanese front either.
I don't see that the Arabs are likely to be more forthcoming until significant progress has been made on the Palestinian track. You may recall that at Annapolis, which was a couple of years ago now, the goal was to have, one of the goals, I mean, the goal was obviously heading toward a two-state solution, but one of the goals was to improve relations between Israel and the Arab states, more visits to Israel, more invitations to Israeli ministers to visit Arab countries, open trade offices, this kind of thing. Actually since Annapolis, there has been less of that rather than more of it, and my sense of the mood in Arab capitals now is that they're going to be unwilling to do it without very significant movement in negotiations between Israel and the PA, and I don't see that movement as very likely.
So I must say I don't think this is a formula for success. I think it's a formula for getting the frustrations of each track to affect the negotiations on the other track.
HOGE: How are we on questions? We're about to run out of time.
OPERATOR: It looks like we have one more.
HOGE: One more? That will have to be the last question.
OPERATOR: Okay. It looks like our final question comes from Francois Clemenceau with Europe One Radio.
QUESTIONER: Yes. Once again, thank you. I'd like to know what do you think is Rahm Emanuel's role in the White House regarding all this process of a relationship between the U.S. and Israel and Israel and the Arab countries surrounding it?
ABRAMS: I'm very clear that I don't know the answer to that question. Rahm Emanuel was present at the meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, but that doesn't tell you very much because it was standard during the Bush administration, for example, that the chief of staff would be at meetings with foreign heads of state or heads of government, but would certainly be invited to all of them and would most often be there.
So it really doesn't tell you.
QUESTIONER: Do you think he can have any influence at all on Barack Obama and his advisors?
ABRAMS: Sure. I mean, I assume that President Obama chose him to be chief of staff because he has great confidence in him and that confidence may be limited to his domestic political skills, but it may not be. The chief of staff also spends an awful lot of time with the president in most administrations, so he may have a significant impact.
He seems to have been in his congressional career and for obvious family reasons, very interested in the Middle East and in Israel. But I can't assess it because a chief of staff has many opportunities for one-on-one conversations with the president. It's one of the great advantages of being chief of staff. I'd say the only other person who has that kind of access is the vice president.
So it's hard to tell. I think if you look back to the last few chiefs of staff, it's hard to tell what's the advice that's privately offered and how much does it matter on foreign policy issues.
So I'm sure I don't know the answer to that question.
HOGE: Let me sneak in one last sort of conclusionary question. As I mentioned earlier to you, Elliott, FT had an article saying the administration hopes to avoid a long, drawn out peace process. Everything we've heard today and what one reads suggests that we'll be lucky to get that, a long, drawn out peace process and I think there's good reasons to say that the obstacles and the differences of opinions are so great that the peace process may be doesn't have that good a chance to really produce something.
If not, what alternate sort of -- (inaudible) -- would you suggest for us, for the United States?
ABRAMS: My own view is that a quick victory in the peace process is impossible. There isn't going to be a quick peace process. I think what the administration should be doing is going for two goals. There should be negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and that negotiating track should be reopened. But meanwhile, there should be a very intense concentration on improving Palestinian life in the West Bank. That would help Fatah and the PA politically. Netanyahu has certainly suggested he's open to that.
The American program to improve the Palestinian security forces lays the basis for a possible pullback or beginning of a pullback of Israeli troops in various places on the West Bank.
I think that if you could combine those two things, an opening of a political track and making visible progress on the West Bank so that Palestinians actually say, my life is getting better, I think that combination is about the best you can do for right now.
HOGE: Very good. Well, this is a terrific hour and I really appreciate it. Elliott Abrams, you've given us a lot to think about.
ABRAMS: My pleasure.
HOGE: On a very tough subject. Elliott, can you stay on the line just a little bit after we conclude?
ABRAMS: Sure.
HOGE: All right. Thank you all very much.
ABRAMS: Thank you.
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