The Hotspots No Speech Can Fix

Timing is the key factor here, and it is timing that makes the situation so difficult. Obama needs time to bring Democrats and Republicans together on a common strategy. Timing divides us, and timing gives us a chance to unite.

Do the Al Qaeda threats in the headlines change the equation? Not really. We’ve heard these threats for eight years now. And we know Al Qaeda can do harm to the United States and its allies—not just from Afghanistan, but from Pakistan, London, Madrid, Jersey City and now Colorado. Afghanistan is not the only place we have to worry about where Al Qaeda is concerned. They can attack us from virtually anywhere; all they need is a working cell, a laptop and some explosives. They don’t need Osama bin Laden Central to accomplish this.

If Qaddafi or Ahmadinejad comes too close, bend down to tie your shoes. A picture of you shaking hands with either leader will swamp everything important that’s happening in the world.

Vice President Biden is right in his central thrust—Afghanistan is not of vital national security interest to the United States. But how then do we disentangle from this place in a responsible way?

We’ve got to get enough Democrats who understand that we can’t just walk away from Afghanistan. We need to give a year or two to train and arm friendly Afghan forces to hold off the Taliban and Al Qaeda. We need to prepare them seriously to do this, and we haven’t done that. There’s no serious program to train their police and their military. When our military takes over, they do it all. We have to start training Afghans to do it themselves. It’s got to be their war, not our war; otherwise it never works, and we always end up losing.

For their part, the Republicans need to understand that this country—and we are a democracy, after all—is not going to support keeping troops in Afghanistan forever, and probably not for much more than two years. If Republicans thought Afghanistan was central to our national security, why didn’t they send proper resources during George Bush’s eight-year presidency? And they can’t or shouldn’t let Obama fail, because that means America fails.

Another trouble spot that comes to the fore this week is the Middle East. The headlines suggest we’re back to Square One, but in reality we never left it. People like to think we’re on the verge of a new and serious round of negotiations. But that’s chimerical. Such negotiations can’t happen as long as there is little support in either the Israeli or Palestinian communities for compromise. At the moment, both communities are radicalized.

So what to do? The Obama administration can’t just put the Middle East on the back burner, and pretend it’s not there, the way George Bush did. There’s got to be some formal process underway—but the administration has to make sure that formal process is not the top priority. George Mitchell, the administration’s Mideast envoy, ought to know this better than anybody.

He ought to remember what worked in Northern Ireland, where his patient diplomacy, in a previous envoy position, worked well. There, the British kept pushing Catholics and Protestants to the table, and the talks kept failing. After ten years, they started concentrating on building support in Catholic and Protestant communities for compromise—and took the spotlight off the negotiating table. They started working with women’s groups on both sides, who began pushing for peace. They worked with the business communities, too, on joint business ventures. That created the grassroots political support in Northern Ireland that eventually led to compromise at the negotiating table. We have to do the same thing with the Israelis and the Palestinians: step back, and foster some projects that will establish the support needed for their leaders to compromise and reach a deal.