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Syria First
Matthew Yglesias —
... Aaron David Miller makes the case for a “Syria first” approach to Middle East peace. I think there are some reasonable elements to that, and it would help lay the groundwork for the kind of approach to Iran the president-elect says he wants to pursue. But I don’t think US policymakers can afford to think that the Palestinian issue can just fester indefinitely merely because it’s not convenient to deal with. ...
The Syria Track
democracyarsenal.org —
... Aaron Miller has a compelling piece in the Post today on the need to first try and achieve something on the Syria track before turning aggressively to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Syria-Israel track does seem much more ripe for an agreement and it could generate the type of game-changer that improves America's image in the region, generates positive Israeli political momentum towards piece, weakens Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah and in the long-term could potentially improve the likelihood of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. However, I think that if the new ...
Syria First
Swampland —
... Building on my post below about the new Obama national security team, Aaron David Miller has a smart column in the Washington Post today about another area in which the Obama foreign policy is likely to differ from that of Bush--and also from what McCain was proposing. He believes that the first step toward a middle east peace is for the U.S. to support the negotiations between Israel and Syria, which the Bush Administration tried to thwart for the past two years in deference to the neoconservative radicals. ...
