IS AIPAC BEING TOO CLEVER BY HALF? STUDY OF U.S. GOLAN CONTINGENCY CAN BE DONE NOW!

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s New
York Times featured a brilliant
column by A.M. Rosenthal concerning the
serious problems entailed in a deployment
of U.S. forces on the Golan Heights as
part of a prospective “peace
agreement” between Israel and Syria.
In it, Mr. Rosenthal joined the
call for a careful evaluation of this
idea by the Congress before the
Clinton Administration permits it to
become an indispensable part of a
“breakthrough” — at
which time dispassionate analysis
becomes, as a practical matter,
impossible.

The highly respected former Times editor
noted, however, that:

“None of the three
governments involved want a
congressional debate about U.S.
troops [on the Golan]. Whatever
President Assad knows about public
discussion he detests. And, like most
American governments, the Clinton
Administration prefers to present
diplomatic done-deals before getting
involved in congressional headaches.

“For the Israeli government,
a U.S. commitment about troops is
critical to rounding up Israeli
voters. So Israeli officials and the
American Israel Public Affairs
Committee [AIPAC] argue hard against
Senate legislation, expected to be
introduced this week, to order a
Defense Department study before a
commitment is made.”

AIPAC’s Response

AIPAC immediately responded to the
Rosenthal article by circulating a letter
to the current editor of the New
York Times. It said, in part:

“A.M. Rosenthal makes
a persuasive case for Congressional
debate before a commitment is made to
place American personnel on the Golan
Heights as part of any peace
agreement between Israel and Syria.
As passionate proponents of the view
that Congress must be a partner with
the President in the determination of
U.S. foreign policy, we at
AIPAC wholeheartedly agree.

“However, we do not support
legislation which is intended either
to support or oppose such a
U.S. role until much more is known
about the context and content of any
actual agreement between Israel and
Syria. (Emphasis added.)

The AIPAC letter signed by President
Steven Grossman and Executive Director
Neal Sher concludes by saying:

“Yes, absolutely,
there must be full debate, and
Congressional backing for any
commitment that is made. But
Congress must have the opportunity to
conduct its deliberations armed with
the facts, if it is to play its vital
role.”

The Other Shoe

So far, so good. Unfortunately, in
between these paragraphs, AIPAC makes a
number of highly debatable assertions:

“We do not believe that the
costs and benefits for the United
States can be assessed meaningfully
without knowing the…critical
parameters [defined by a specific
agreement]. Mr. Rosenthal says,
‘Congressional discussion could clear
up legitimate doubts, or confirm
them….The American public [must
have] a good idea of what it is
getting into.’ However, Congress can
play this role only if it has
reliable information — information
that is not available today, because
it does not exist. Nor
do we believe that a Defense
Department study of risks could be
meaningful without precise knowledge
of the details of an Israel-Syria
agreement….(Emphasis
added.)

The AIPAC letter goes on to contend
that “Risk analysis is certainly not
a hard science” and that “even
with known parameters, estimates are
often unreliable. Without them,
estimation becomes an exercise in pure
imagination.”

Clearly, there is good news and bad
news from AIPAC. The good news
is that “America’s
Pro-Israel Lobby” appears to agree
with A.M. Rosenthal, the Center for
Security Policy and many other
individuals concerned about the
ominous implications — both for U.S.
interests and U.S.-Israeli relations —
of a decision to commit American troops
to the Golan Heights without an informed
congressional debate.

Really Bad News

The bad news is that AIPAC,
unfortunately, appears determined to
oppose legislation that requires the
Defense Department to evaluate — and
allows Congress to debate — various
contingencies now,
before that decision is made. While it
expresses a commitment to just such an
outcome, AIPAC seems to stipulate that it
cannot occur until after an
Israeli-Syrian deal is done and the
United States is pledged to play whatever
role the Clinton Administration chooses.

That would be predictable effect of
its argument that no useful, expert
opinion can be offered on the basis of
certain assumptions — even assumptions
that reflect a band of uncertainty about
the kinds of questions AIPAC agrees
should be asked:

“Will the size and deployment
of the Syrian Army look like it does
today? Will terrorist groups operate
in Damascus as they now do? What
kinds of U.S. monitors or troops are
contemplated, how many, and where?
What provisions will be made for
their security?”

Many of the members of the Center for
Security Policy’s Board of Advisors know
from first-hand experience in the
Pentagon that such contingency studies
are done virtually every day by uniformed
and civilian officials of the Department
of Defense.

What is more, AIPAC has itself
frequently taken positions on the basis
of just such contingency studies.
For example, in the past, it vehemently
— and properly — opposed sales of AWACS
aircraft and F-15 fighters to Saudi
Arabia long before the specific
“parameters” of the transfer
were defined. In fact, by insisting on
debating the merits and risks beforehand,
it did much to determine the terms
ultimately arrived at for these
strategically sensitive developments.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
understands that the RAND
Corporation has recently performed a
study of options for a U.S. deployment on
the Golan Heights. It is also
informed that certain senior
Members of Congress are already being
equipped with maps and descriptions of
DOD’s preliminary planning for
such a deployment.

The Center has also received word that
AIPAC officers have advised supporters to
be prepared to help lobby Congress for
billions in additional arms for Israel
(arms which she will certainly need) when
an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan
Heights is announced, possibly as soon as
July. In short, there is ample
basis for an informed, thoughtful debate when
it matters, i.e., now — provided,
of course, that there is a genuine
willingness to have one.

AIPAC and others who seem determined
to oppose such a debate at this time —
and the preparation of the materials that
would support it — should bear firmly in
mind the powerful closing lines of Abe
Rosenthal’s column: “Today,
the movement for debate comes from
American friends of Israel. If that is
blocked, some soon tomorrow the demand
will come from her enemies.”