Deals and dilemmas   ( corrected and updated post)

I want  to begin with an important supplement to last week’s post- “Diplomacy and debacles.” It was written by Ben Fishman a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former director for North Africa on the United States National Security Council.

 ‘The Rise and Immediate Fall of Israel- Libya relations.’

Fishman summarises the awkward predicament resulting from the Israeli and Libyan foreign ministers meeting in Rome.

“The scandal surrounding a surprise meeting between their foreign ministers has cratered any hope of upgraded ties with Israel—though it could cause a political shake-up in Libya.

On August 27, Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen revealed that he had met with his Libyan counterpart Najla al-Mangoush in Rome, sparking an imbroglio in both of their countries and further abroad. Protests erupted immediately across Libya, including at the Foreign Ministry and the residence of Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dabaiba, who likely authorized the meeting. Dabaiba tried to calm the situation by suspending Mangoush and naming an interim foreign minister, while his Government of National Unity (GNU) called the incident a chance encounter alongside Italy’s foreign minister rather than a planned meeting. As protests continued on August 28, Dabaiba appeared at the Palestinian embassy in Tripoli, where he announced that he had officially dismissed Mangoush, and reiterated Libya’s dedication to the Palestinian cause. Fearing further backlash and potential violence, Mangoush fled to Istanbul.”

At this juncture I want add a few points that Ben Fishman emphasised regarding Ms. Najla al-Mangoush.

“Unlike her predecessors, who were experienced diplomats familiar with Libya’s byzantine Foreign Ministry, Mangoush had no diplomatic background. Dabaiba appointed her in March 2021 only after another female candidate drew criticism, and she faced a unique challenge as a woman among exclusively male foreign ministers across the region. She lacked a power base of her own and wielded narrow influence outside of what Dabaiba and his circle granted her. Yet she was resilient during her first two years in office, surviving calls for her resignation over controversial statements criticizing Turkey’s military presence in Libya.”

A personal comment: I wondered why of all places would she choose to fly to Turkey. Well, her stopover in Istanbul was brief, just time enough to catch a connecting flight to London.

Najla al-Mangoush was born in Cardiff, Wales, to a family of four children immigrants from Libya, but she grew up in Benghazi, the city to which the family returned, when she was six years old. Later her family moved back to the UK.

Back to Ben Fishman’s remarks - “The Rome meeting occurred during a sensitive time for Dabaiba. He was appointed in February 2021 to serve as interim prime minister until elections scheduled for later that year, but after voting was delayed indefinitely, he retained his post largely through legitimate and illegitimate spending of the state’s substantial oil revenue. This included increasing payments to his eastern Libyan rivals in July 2022 when the warlord Khalifa Haftar blockaded oil fields.

These funding arrangements have sustained Dabaiba’s premiership even as negotiations over setting an elections timetable recently renewed his rivals’ push to remove him. Although he has parried that effort so far, international support may be pivoting away from him. During an August 22 Security Council meeting in New York, UN Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily  noted that it was the ‘political and moral responsibility of all leaders to close the open-ended interim arrangements,’ while U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated, ‘We are open to supporting the formation of a technocratic caretaker government whose sole task would be to bring the country to free and fair elections.’ “The latter remark could be viewed as a warning against Dabaiba’s intransigence, though he is just one of several political elites who have stymied progress toward elections.

In that context, Dabaiba likely viewed outreach to Cohen as a signal to the United States that he is forward-leaning on engagement with Israel, despite his country being historically supportive of the Palestinian cause. “……..

“In the current case, however, Dabaiba, Mangoush, and Cohen all made miscalculations that negated the potential value of the Rome meeting. For one, Cohen immediately violated the obvious requirement of secrecy by making a public statement about the talks. Israel’s Foreign Ministry later blamed leaks for Cohen’s decision to go public, though any such leaks could have been easily denied by Dabaiba and the GNU. Moreover, Mangoush and Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani should have set clearer ground rules for the discussion, which could have prevented Cohen from killing any near-term prospects for a serious Israel-Libya track—the only real outcome of his apparent bid to burnish his diplomatic credentials.

Two factors suggest the Biden administration may have been aware of a potential encounter but did not orchestrate the Rome meeting. First, Israel’s Arab normalization portfolio is closely held by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), not the Foreign Ministry (the Mossad is occasionally involved as well). Cohen and his director-general have (unsuccessfully) attempted to work on normalization in Africa, but the PMO remains Washington’s primary interlocutor on these issues. Hence, it is doubtful that U.S. officials would have set up such a sensitive meeting with Cohen—all the more so because of concerns over leaks.

Second, despite commentary highlighting regional normalization as an overarching goal for the Biden administration, prioritizing Libya in this process would be putting the cart before the horse. It is difficult enough to coordinate diplomatic engagement with a well-established Arab government, let alone with a politically indeterminate and deeply pro-Palestinian country—never mind the fact that Israel is now led by its most right-wing government in history, with officials who regularly make inflammatory statements against Palestinians. Haftar’s circle reportedly extended private feelers to Israel over the past two years in search of arms or political support, and that approach may be palatable in Libya, particularly because Haftar controls the information space in the east. But an official meeting between foreign ministers was clearly a bridge too far and may prove unrecoverable for Dabaiba.

One thing is clear: the clumsy episode will set back Israel-Libya rapprochement for years, if it was ever in the cards. The question now is how long Dabaiba can survive, and whether this controversy will prompt a renewed push for elections.”

Let’s move on to another foreign policy item that continues to make headlines

The Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman provided his own provocative headline.

“Biden’s misguided pursuit of a Saudi-Israel deal” - plus a sub-heading -

“A Middle East grand bargain could be a grand illusion.”

 

“From Kissinger to Carter, and from Clinton to Kushner, the urge to broker peace deals in the Middle East is a constant in American diplomacy. Now it is the turn of the Biden administration to set off down this well-trodden path. The White House is working on a ‘grand bargain’ in the Middle East that would lead to the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. To help bring this about, the US is reportedly prepared to offer security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, as well as assistance for a civil nuclear programme. Israel’s part of the bargain is that it would offer some concessions towards the Palestinians. For its promoters, Joe Biden’s grand bargain delivers several seductive-sounding ‘wins’ It would extend peace, prosperity and stability in the Middle East. It would bolster the US in the struggle for global influence with China. And it would give Biden a diplomatic achievement to boast about, in time for the 2024 presidential election. Unfortunately, the reality of the deal could be much less attractive. The US could end up promising to defend an erratic autocracy in Saudi Arabia, while bolstering an Israeli government that is fast eroding its own democracy. Meanwhile, the hoped-for gains — pushback against China and progress for the Palestinians — may never materialise. In that case, the grand bargain will turn out to be a grand illusion. Relations between Saudi Arabia and the US have been rocky during the Biden administration. The kingdom’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, was angered by the release of a US government report that accused him of direct involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist. The red-carpet treatment for Xi Jinping when he visited Saudi Arabia, was notably warmer than the reception given to Biden. It was China, not the US, that helped to broker peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia last March. And the Saudis have just announced that they will join the Brics, which increasingly looks like Beijing’s answer to the G7. All this has created unease in Washington — which is doubtless part of the point. The Biden administration had wanted to disengage from the Middle East and focus on the rise of China. But the flirtation between Riyadh and Beijing helped to persuade the White House that re-engagement in the Middle East was necessary, as part of the global competition for influence with China. The US-China struggle to shape the global order is taking place on many fronts — including finance, trade, security and regulation. As a large economy, a G20 member and the world’s second-largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia is unavoidably a big player in all those domains. So, pulling the Saudis back into the US camp has become a goal for Washington. However, while the attractions of the US-Saudi-Israel deal are clear, so are the risks. Unlike other countries that America has pledged to defend — such as Japan or Germany — Saudi Arabia is nobody’s idea of a democracy. The country’s human rights record remains grim. Human Rights Watch recently released a report, accusing the kingdom of shooting dead hundreds of Ethiopian refugees. Even close Biden allies in Washington, such as Senator Chris Murphy, are uneasy.” Murphy stated recently that he has big questions about “guaranteeing the protection of a big country in the Middle East that tends to get into fights with its neighbours fairly often”. The senator believes that the battle for global influence with China is ultimately “about which form of government this world is going to live under”. “Getting closer and closer to brutal dictatorships makes it a lot harder to try to sell democracy.” Since Murphy heads the Middle East subcommittee of the Senate foreign relations committee, his views matter. It would be a real own goal for the Biden administration if it were to conclude a new treaty, only to find that it cannot get it through Congress. The Israeli side of the bargain also presents problems. The current government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is widely accused of undermining Israeli democracy. Netanyahu’s coalition contains ‘horrible racist parties’— in the words of Tamir Pardo, a former head of the Israeli intelligence agency, appointed by Netanyahu himself. Those parties are accelerating the expansion of Israeli settlements, at the expense of the Palestinians — while violence in the occupied territories surges. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption — which should ring an alarm bell or two in the Biden White House. But one thing that might rescue the Israeli prime minister’s domestic political position is playing the statesman by presiding over a historic peace deal with Saudi Arabia. Supporters of the grand bargain respond that, as part of the deal, Israel will have to make concessions to the Palestinians. These could revive the two-state solution, while forcing Netanyahu to go into coalition with more moderate parties. But there are many ways for Netanyahu to wriggle out of any theoretical concessions to the Palestinians. And it is very doubtful that either the Saudis or the Americans would have the means or the will to force genuine progress towards a two-state solution. The Biden administration’s Middle East grand bargain can sound alluring. But it risks rewarding the wrong people, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.”

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni.                                7^th of September, 2023