Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations: The Interplay and Impacts of US Foreign Policy and Private Enterprise

>> Audience 1: Thanks a lot for the talk. I'd like to invite you to follow up on some of your thoughts about JCPOA, the decision to the JCPOA, the decision to enter it, the decision to leave it, and where we are now with that. Thanks a lot.

>> Russell Berman: I think it's pretty moribund right now.

There's a long history. Of course, the Obama administration wanted to do this. It faced a lot of opposition in Congress. Therefore, it was structured as a way to bypass Congress in a complicated legislative arrangement. I do think that the maximum pressure campaign did put a lot of pressure on Iran and has forced it into some tough choices.

And the aspiration by the Biden administration to reenter it has just not gone anywhere. In part, I think, because the Iranians really aren't that interested in it, and in part because the efforts on the part of the Biden administration were. Were a little half hearted. There's a kind of mystery whodunit aspect to this.

The big advocate of this JCPOA opening to Iran was Rob Malley in the State Department. Who a month, I think, ago, I think, sort of has been put on a leave, I believe, unpaid leave for some kind of infraction of something. So there's a spy story here going on as well.

We don't know the details.

>> Audience 2: Hello, thank you so much for your presentation. It was really interesting, and I appreciate how you kind of explained all the different branches. My name is Maeve. I'm from the University of Michigan. And you talked about kind of the balance of powers between, or the balance between, like, the world powers and their agenda.

And then the kind of cultural, the regional cultural kind of variance and how those two things align. And I think one of the values that's really important to some of our, like, to our world power, like, to the US in particular, is democracy. And I guess one example that comes to mind of where that didn't exactly, the translation between kind of, like, pushing that didn't really work was, like, with Iran in the 1970s.

And so I guess my question to you is, like, what's your opinion on when we should use the State Department and other kind of foreign affairs issues to kind of enact our own agenda versus to, like. What you mentioned, kind of just maintain healthy relations but not necessarily change other countries ability or like, their structure and culture?

If it doesn't seem like it's gonna align well and cause kind of more resentment towards the US, possibly, as we've seen in Iran, I think there's probably not one size fits all.

>> Russell Berman: There's a real need for tact and sensitivity and non arrogance. I know that Americans, not everybody here's american.

We Americans think highly of these democratic values that you mentioned, but we can sound very haranguing and moralistic in other countries, and I think we have to be aware of that. We can promote democracy, but I don't think we can demand democracy, because if we impose democracy, it's by definition probably not democracy.

But what that means in different countries is going to vary a whole lot. Let me reflect additionally and briefly on this question of democracy. There is a discourse about democracy under threat, and this usually means China and Russia, or it means populism, american or otherwise. I think that we in the early 21st century do face threats to democracy, but they're not only from political opponents of democracy.

It also comes from sometimes in the name of democracy. We have witnessed here in the United States efforts by government to restrict discussions in newspapers, online, in universities. That's hardly a golden moment of democracy. There seems to be a fear of open discussion, and therefore government tries to manage it.

There is nefarious disinformation, and government should try to figure out what's going on. But I think it oversteps also. What we see is in many countries, a rule by executive authority, the bypassing legislature, the JCPOA. For example, that should have been ratified or not by the Senate, but it was even put up for a vote there.

In that sense, I think the controversial retirement age discussion in France was also bypassed the legislature in a significant way. So there are threats to democracy, but they also are inside the so called democratic systems and not only on the outside.

>> Audience 3: The Palestinian Authority is struggling mildly right now, and a lot of it is probably because of its own missteps.

But I think it was telling that Mahmoud Abbas actually visited China a couple months ago, which I think took a lot of folks by surprise. Do you expect China to play an increasing role in the Palestinian Israeli problem? And is that perhaps where their next battleground is diplomatically in the Middle East?

>> Russell Berman: I think the Chinese are trying to insert themselves diplomatically in the Middle east in general. Whether they want to insert themselves into the Israel palestine debate is really a question for them. I could see a reason to do it, as in the Iran saudi rapprochement, if that's the right word.

But I could also think that people in Beijing say, you know what? This is going to be intractable for us, too. Let's try to get involved in a problem we can solve than problem that we can't solve. But I think the point of your question is actually right on.

If the United States pivots away, somebody else is going to pivot in and it's likely to be China or it'll be Russia. I wrote in the wake of the, the Saudi Iran deal that the United States might wake up one morning and see that it is indeed China who, who resolves Israel Palestine.

And that would be tectonic because of the close relationship between Israel and. In the United States. But that relationship has not always been the case, as I mentioned before. And it would not necessarily have to be the case. I think most Israelis would say, no, that would never change.

But if the United States pulls out of a region, everything's up for grabs.

>> Audience 4: Hi, I'm Carmel. I'm actually from Israel and I wanted to ask you, I work for Solaredge that you probably know. It's israeli based company listed in the US. Recently started to work officially in Saudi Arabia.

And what role do you think the private sector can play in those foreign relations in the Middle east and in the Gulf area?

>> Russell Berman: Okay, I understood the last part about private sector. I didn't understand the first part.

>> Audience 4: That's basically the question. So what role the private sector can play in the foreign relations in the Middle east and the Gulf?

>> Russell Berman: That's a great question because it puts on the table, what do we mean by foreign policy and foreign relations? By foreign policy, I meant what the state does, does. And in the United States, that's complicated by the fact that, well, there's the executive, there's the congress. They can be at odds with each other.

But then there are also all sorts of organizations in civil society, from NGO's to lobbies that contribute to foreign policy formation. And some of those lobbies will be informed by private sector interests. The foreign relations is bigger than foreign policy. Foreign policy is what the state does. Foreign relations would include all of the interactions between the societies and private sector can play or does play a role.

The foreign policy of any state is going to pursue optimal conditions for its private sector overseas. And it's going to have to balance that against the other desiderata that I've been talking about. But to the extent that there's a prosperity divide in the world, one way the United States can contribute to ameliorating conditions in other countries is by private sector investment, no doubt.

>> Audience 5: Thank you for your lecture, sir. My question is, is political islam a spent force in the Middle east and what are the prospects for secularization in the region?

>> Russell Berman: I think political. Short answer, yes. I guess I'd want to nuance that a whole lot. I think there are radical Islamists still who operate in parts of the Middle east actually right now more in the Sahel.

It's more an Africa question than a Middle east question. I don't think that political Islam is thoroughly gone from the Middle east. In Egypt, for example, I'm pretty sure that the structure of the Muslim Brotherhood has been decimated. But there's probably a lot of sympathy for the content of its positions in parts of the population so it could be mobilized again, although I'm not predicting that at this point.

What what's interesting about this moment is that if I'm right about what? The signals from Tehran, we could be seeing the end of the islamist extremist era that really began in the 1970s. And the Saudi Arabia of Mohammed bin Salman has really pulled back on supporting the export of wahhabism, not fully, but largely.

So that's gone. And if Tehran is prepared to reach out to Riyadh, that means that it also is prepared to rework the ideological operating system that it has depended on since 1979. So if I were to zoom out, I'd say, listen, there's an anthropological discussion, a religious theoretical discussion of Islamist extremism.

There's a also an approach to it to see that this is really state sponsored stuff one way or another. And if the states stop sponsoring it, it's over. It's crucial, I believe, to recognize that what we're not talking about is Islam. We're talking about sectarian interpretations of Islam, the primary victims of which have often been Muslims.

>> Audience 6: Thank you, professor. I'm right here from the University of Washington. So my question is, given your expertise in german studies and european politics, what are some lessons that you can take away from that region towards foreign policy in the Middle east, if any?

>> Russell Berman: Good question. A few things that come to mind.

There can be profound transformations, even when you don't expect them. In 1914. In 1918, the assumption in the world was that Germany was hopelessly imperial and could never become a democracy. And this was reinforced, of course, by the Hitler era. In the meantime, West Germany became a functioning liberal democracy with its own quirks, with its own characteristics.

It's not the same as France or Britain. It's a liberal democracy, and unified Germany is one as well. A century ago, bets were that Germans were hopelessly undemocratic, and Germans would have said, many Germans would have said, you know what? We're undemocratic and we're proud of it. We're not western.

I think the discourse about democracy being impossible in the Middle east is subject, therefore, subject to skepticism. I think that democracy is rare in the Middle east, but things can change rapidly. Things can change profoundly. I think that Mohammed bin Salman has carried out some profound reforms for which he would be applauded if there were not that other story about him.

On democracy and transformation as well, interestingly, the Biden administration was not only snubbing the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, was also snubbing President Erdogan of Turkey, who counted as one of those non-democratic, authoritarian, populist, yada yada yada yada leaders. And they wouldn't talk to him, especially not in the lead up to the election, because they did not wanna give him a leg up.

After he won, national security advisor, Sullivan, was prepared to talk with the Turks and was asked how come? He said, well, he won a democratic election, so things can change. That's one thing. The other thing is that there are always different national interests. The Western European story about the 20th century, was that nationalism was the source of catastrophe, and therefore, one has to overcome nationalism, national identity, national loyalties enter the EU in order to guarantee peace and harmony.

The East Europeans don't buy that story, but that's a whole other issues. I mention this now because in my observation of the EU, the Germans and the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, they all pursued their national interest just under the cover of the EU. This does not go away.

This is the way humans are. We have our individual interests, and I think that will apply in the Middle east as well. Saudi Arabia versus the other Gulf states, Egypt, Shirley, they all have their national interests in the context of a larger regional system.

>> Audience 7: Thank you so much, professor.

Wondering if you might be able to explain a little bit about Afghanistan, perhaps? What were some of the lessons that may have been learned or in the future, how we can engage better and what potentially could be our strategy going forward?

>> Russell Berman: That's a real bitter question, because I think the biggest result of the Afghanistan war and the withdrawal is that there has been no national discussion about it.

It's just stunning. 20 years, all the lives lost, all the resources spent, Americans and Afghans and all the other forces that were part of the coalition in Afghanistan. Then you have this dramatic debacle of a departure, and not with a bang, but a whimper. I would have expected congressional hearings where you pulled in all the generals one by one and said, what went wrong?

And we're not getting any of that. I mean, if there's a crisis of democracy, it's that we're not talking about the result of the Afghanistan war. That's a big takeaway. The other takeaway, I think, is to be cautious about mission creep. That it was initially a post 911 response going after Al-Qaeda.

Going after Al-Qaeda became going after Taliban, and then it became a mission to revolutionize Afghan society. And that is something that we did not carry out and could not carry out. So I think our aspirations were too high. This goes back to the question about democracy and about values.

We may be assure of our values. We may think that they're incontrovertible. I think they're all pretty well meaning. But do we impose them on the rest of the world? It becomes very hard, because then what about the Afghan women who are saying, we want equality? Do we send US troops in to give them equality or not?

It's not as if we're in the same state structure as we were in the American civil war, where northern troops are going into the same country in order to pursue the values of the nation. But this is a separate country. I see this very prominently in some of the Middle East responses to aspects of US cultural policy.

And someone asked about the private sector, the US film industry. There's a boycott of the Barbie film in some of the Middle East countries, for reasons of cultural values allegedly promoted by the film, which I have not seen and therefore will not comment on. Nonetheless, I can imagine that in cultural conservative parts of the world, some aspects of US values are grating, grating with a t.

Should the US embassy, should the US consulates be out there promoting the most Hollywood of our values in cultural conservative sectors? Is that useful for the pursuit of American foreign policy? Flying the rainbow flag gets you a lot in Berlin, it gets you a whole lot less in Riyadh.

And is that being hypocritical or is that being pragmatic? I don't think there's a neat, easy answer to that.

>> Audience 8: Hi, my question is about kurdish insurgency groups, specifically in the Syria, Turkey, Iraq border area. In those areas, as I'm sure you know, fighting between government forces and those insurgency groups has only grown in the last decade.

My question is, what role do you see those non-state groups, specifically armed and possibly ethnic groups in particular, having in US foreign policy in the area over the next decade?

>> Russell Berman: It's an extraordinarily complicated region. Just the ethnic mix of the region, the geography of the ethnic distribution makes it very complicated.

Then you have the bitterness toward the Assad regime and the crimes that it is committed that is going to prevent any kind of easy reconciliation among these populations. Some of these are really plugged into global jihadist networks, and then you have competition with Turkey, Syria, Iran. I don't have an easy solution to this, the United States has a stake in it because it does not want to, well, has a stake into it because global competition doesn't wanna cede it to Russia.

Has a stake in its values because it doesn't want to countenance the kind of human rights violations that the Assad regime has been carrying out. You can go online and see the clip of the killings in Tadmor, where the Assad people are just lining people up in a pit and shooting them.

And the United States has a pragmatic region interest, excuse me, in limiting the scope of the refugee flows. There's no doubt that Assad has been instrumentalizing refugees in order to destabilize other countries, but also in order to create a Syrian population that is going to be more conducive to voting for him if it ever comes to elections.

So the story goes on. One more question. Who has the mic?

>> Audience 9: Thank you so much, professor. My question is, what do you think about the evolving relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel? There's been a longstanding relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel under the surface, and there's security interests, there are business interests, there are regional stability interests.

>> Russell Berman: I think the many interests in the region are bypassing the Palestine question about which people asked before. I don't have any answer to that solution. And it could be that the moment has passed for the best solution there. With regard to Saudi and Israel, the flights are already going.

I think there'll probably be a kind of Abraham Accord resolution soon. But it may be that the crown prince is going to wait until President Biden is no longer in the White House. And that's a personal choice, but I see it coming.

>> Russell Berman: Okay, sure.