Obama and Hamas

Drudge links to Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

There is less to this story then meets the eye. Obama is not likely to discontinue any of the policies by which Bush isolated Hamas. The idea that the current administration does not already have clandestine lines of communication with Hamas (for example: through Egypt) is silly.

The explicit 'break' from current doctrine is this: The Bush administration conducted clandestine negotiations with Hamas, as it did with Iran, clandestinely and indirectly, while Obama has advisors who would have him conduct clandestine negotiations directly and more publically. Bush's approach is based on the belief that direct and public negotiation with the United States is a diplomatic carrot -- by virtue of the legitimization it implies -- which American diplomats should not simply give away. I have a harder time understanding the rationale of the anonymous Obama advisors. Perhaps they do not see direct or public negotiation as extending implied legitimization to actors like Iran and Hamas.

The bigger question is not "how", but the "what". Bush extended clear terms -- fundamentally the same as what the US required of the PLO back in the day -- for including Hamas more directly in the conversation. Obama has given no real indication that he intends to relax these conditions. On the other hand, one doesn't have to read too deeply between the lines to sense that his anonymous advisors would have him do so.

Richard Haass, a diplomat under both Bush presidents who was named by a number of news organisations this week as Obama's choice for Middle East envoy, supports low-level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.

Another potential contender for a foreign policy role in the Obama administration suggested that the president-elect would not be bound by the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas.

"This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with critical parties on critical issues," the source said.

These are not consistent positions. As Hamas is a more critical party and the issues are more critical if there is no cease fire and no Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, the anonymous contender would not support the conditions Haass would have. Implicit in Haass' position is the supposed Bush doctrine of viewing negotiation as a reward for good behavior.

..."Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," said Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation. "You could do something through the Europeans. You could invent a structure that is multilateral. It is going to be hard for the neocons to swallow," he said. "I think it is going to happen.

This reminds me of Met fans who chant "Yankees Suck" at Shea when the Mets do well. Policy makers should have greater concerns then how well neocons are swallowing what.

...the president-elect would be wary of being seen to give legitimacy to Hamas as a consequence of the war in Gaza.

Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at George town University's school of foreign service, said it was unlikely that Obama would move to initiate contacts with Hamas unless the radical faction in Damascus was crippled by the conflict in Gaza. "This would really be dependent on Hamas's military wing having suffered a real, almost decisive, drubbing."

Even with such caveats, there is growing agreement, among Republicans as well as Democrats, on the need to engage Hamas to achieve a sustainable peace in the Middle East – even among Obama's close advisers.

The argument for engaging Hamas depends on the low likelyhood of Hamas participating in a "sustainable" peace still being greater then the likelyhood of Hamas being made irrelevant.

Hoffman's opinion is mind-bogglingly perverse. Hamas's military wing suffering a real, almost decisive, drubbing dramatically increases the likelyhood of Hamas being made irrelevant as their primary selling point is "We, better the Fatah, can stand up to Israel". To the degree that Hamas is not going away, there is some argument that it has to be dealt with. But why would anyone want America to rescue Hamas from the jaws of irrelevancy?

Which gets to a more fundamental point. In the end, negotiations with Hamas may well be a necessary evil. They ought not be something anybody is anxious to do.