May 1, 2015 17 News & Analysis White House 2016

What will the second President Clinton do in the Middle East?

Martin Sieff strongly supported the talks that led to the formal negotiations for Tehran. Washington She was a powerful hawk arguing that the United States must main- illary Rodham Clin- tain a strong military commitment ton has been a familiar in Iraq and Afghanistan throughout presence in the Middle her four years as secretary of state. East for nearly a quarter She was a key figure in encourag- century. Yet for all her ing the democratic protests and Hhigh visibility as first lady, senator overthrow of old authoritarian re- and secretary of state, she remains gimes that characterised the “Arab an opaque, sphinx-like figure. How spring”. Yet now she is distancing will she treat the region if she is herself from that policy and criti- elected president? cising US President Barack Obama Clinton is in no way anti-Arab. for his support of the protest The Clinton Foundation has re- movements, which she at the time ceived at least $40 million from shared. wealthy Gulf Arab donors. She has How can one make any serious A women’s advocate longstanding friendships with lead- assessment of what she will do as ers and members of royal families president, given such wildly con- throughout the region. She struck tradictory and erratic stands? There However strained US-Israeli rela- tion. However, Clinton is far more She has waited a very long time to up an especially close friendship are enduring contexts and key fac- tions will be under Obama in the likely than Obama to act decisively win the supreme executive power. with Suha Arafat, the widow of Pal- tors that can give us at least an idea next two years, they will be vastly and send renewed US military forc- Expect her to start using it deci- estinian Authority president Yasser of the key policies Clinton will pur- more so, to an unprecedented de- es into the region yet again, this sively and controversially as soon Arafat. She also has close ties and sue in the region. gree in recent decades, if Clinton time to counter growing Iranian as she gets the chance. friendships with Israel. First, she has had an enduring becomes president. threats. Second, she will not follow passion for a two-state solution to Her presidency will not be an un- Two other crucial factors, usu- meekly in the policies of her hus- Her policies run the resolve the Israel-Palestinian con- mixed blessing for the main Arab ally entirely overlooked by pundits, band, former president Bill Clinton. flict. She passively accepted the nations in the region. If Clinton must be taken into account: Clinton If anything, she will react strongly risk of making even policies of Obama, his top political follows her traditional orientation will have just turned 69 if she wins against them. the strongest Arab advisers and the National Security of the past quarter century, they the presidency and she will be her These factors mean that the first states more Council, then under national se- should be able to expect strong, own person in it. six months of a Hillary Clinton vulnerable to Iranian curity adviser Tom Donilon, and predictable and consistent US sup- The first factor means that she presidency will not be tranquil ones made no effort whatsoever to pres- port. But this will be distorted by will be an older woman in a hurry. for the region. There will be energy, aggression sure Israeli Prime Minister Biny- the immense emphasis Clinton Unlike Obama she will not be cau- new surges of optimism in different amin Netanyahu to stop expanding will certainly give to promoting tious on domestic and foreign countries for different reasons, new But as secretary of state and puta- settlements outside Israel’s 1967 women’s rights and human rights policy issues that she cares deeply opportunities and new dangers. tive presidential candidate, Clinton borders or to make him seriously throughout the region, even at the about during her first term. But do not expect things to simply reversed herself on key issues in pursue a two-state solution. risk of destabilising longstanding Clinton has seen how Obama continue as they are. recent years. She spoke out repeat- However, once elected president, regimes. squandered his landslide 2008 vic- edly and strongly against allowing it is a safe bet that Clinton will move In the short run, her policies run tory and the healthy majorities he Martin Sieff is a national columnist Iran to develop nuclear weapons with far more determination and the risk of making even the strong- then carried also in the Senate and for the Post-Examiner newspapers when she was secretary of state. pressure to force Netanyahu back est Arab states more vulnerable to the House of Representatives. She and a senior fellow of the American Yet now her intimates have said she to the negotiating table in earnest. Iranian aggression and destabilisa- will not make the same mistake. University in Moscow. Jeb Bush playing to all sides of the Republican foreign policy spectrum

Gregory Aftandilian ry season, Jeb Bush has gathered All we know is that he is a strong tration but not of his brother, say- They also include a few neo-con- around him a group of advisers that supporter of Israel and has praised ing “some mistakes” were made, servatives, such as Paul Wolfow- represent both foreign policy wings Prime Minister Binyamin Netan- particularly on intelligence matters itz, a former deputy secretary of Washington of the Republican Party. How he yahu’s address to Congress on the and for failing to provide for secu- defence under George W. Bush, reconciles these two wings is a Iran nuclear issue. But all of the de- rity in the post-invasion period. and former adviser to former vice- eb Bush, a likely Republi- guessing game. clared and undeclared Republican The rest of the speech centred on president Dick Cheney, John Han- can presidential contender, presidential candidates have done US President Barack Obama. nah. The list includes former CIA is a novice in the foreign Jeb Bush is a novice the same, so Bush is clearly in the Like other Republicans, Bush directors Michael Haydon and Por- policy field. In this respect, middle of the pack. has said that Obama has made the ter Goss. he is more like his brother- in the foreign policy To establish his foreign policy United States less influential in the An unnamed Republican foreign Jpresident George W. Bush than his field credentials, Bush gave a speech to world. He added that the United policy veteran told a reporter that father-president George H.W. Bush. the Chicago Council on Global Af- States should have “no reason to Jeb Bush is “trying to be everything While the latter is more identified Bush’s political credentials come fairs in February. The speech was apologise for our leadership and to everybody”. with the “realist” school of foreign from his stint as governor of Flori- noteworthy only for his attempt to our interest in serving the cause of Perhaps because his foreign policy, the former, especially after da, a state that is connected to Latin distance himself somewhat from global security, global peace and policy speech in Chicago was not 9/11, is associated with “neo-con- America because of trade with and his father and brother, saying that global freedom”. Presumably, the a rousing success, Bush recently servatives” who wanted to bring immigration from that region. With while he loves them both, he is his last phrase was added by his neo- hired a couple of congressional staff about regime change in Iraq and his Mexican-born wife and his flu- “own man” and that his views are conservative advisers who still members to give more life and more transform the Middle East. ency in Spanish, Bush can speak shaped by his “own thinking and yearn for his brother’s so-called direction to his foreign policy. They Seemingly unsure where to plant with some authority about Latin own experiences”. Freedom Agenda. include Robert Karem, who was his staff, and wanting to attract as American affairs but his knowledge On the controversial issue of the In addition, Bush called for: more a foreign policy adviser to former much Republican Party support as of and political fluency in Middle Iraq war of 2003, Bush offered some economic growth at home to aid House Majority Leader Eric Cantor possible before the gruelling prima- East affairs is limited. criticism of his brother’s adminis- US force abroad; increased defence (R-Va.) and later to House Majority spending; greater global engage- Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.); ment and a strategy to defeat the and John Noonan, who was spokes- Islamic State (ISIS); the need to face man for the House Armed Services “radical Islamic terrorism”; and a Committee and a former defence “liberty diplomacy”, which is based adviser to former Republican presi- on American values of “individual- dential candidate Mitt Romney. ism and liberty”. He then criticised the negotia- Jeb Bush is “trying to tions that led to improved relations be everything to with Cuba, said the West should provide more military help to everybody” Ukraine and praised the congres- sional invitation to Netanyahu. Although Karem and Noonan These were all standard Repub- are more on the side of the real- lican positions. Where he tried to ists, they will have to placate the distance himself somewhat from neo-conservatives for the time be- the pack was his comment that the ing. The latter’s wings have been United States needs an immigra- clipped because of the problems as- tion reform policy (sounding like sociated with the Iraq war but they Obama) because multiculturalism are still a force within the party. is “one of America’s strengths”. Ultimately, Jeb Bush will have to So who is advising him on these choose one side or the other but he positions? The list is a sort of Who’s is unlikely to do so before the pri- Who in the Republican foreign pol- maries, which will consume the icy field. They include realists such first half of 2016. as former secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz, and for- Gregory Aftandilian is an associate mer Middle East adviser to George of the Middle East Center at the H.W. Bush, Richard Haass, now University of Massachusetts- president of the Council on Foreign Lowell and a former US State Making choices Relations. Department Middle East analyst.