Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: John Kerry

  • Kerry Said to Express Doubts About Syria Strategy

    For the past two and a half years, the Obama Administration has projected an aura of confidence to the public about its policy on Syria. Despite clamors from some members of Congress for more active military engagement in the conflict, officials have resisted the temptation to intervene on a mass scale, with a certain private assurance that the policy they have been following is the most responsible course of action the United States can take.

    That confidence seemed to pay off when Bashar al-Assad agreed to dismantle and destroy his chemical weapons stockpile in order to avert the use of military force — an event that President Barack Obama brought up himself during his State of the Union address this week as an example of his administration’s foreign policy achievements.

    But it appears much of that confidence is now being tossed aside by some of the Obama Administration’s most senior members. According to reporters Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg, Josh Rogan of the The Daily Beast and Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post, Secretary of State John Kerry is one of the officials beginning to doubt whether America’s policy in Syria is doing anything to push the Assad regime out of power. (more…)

  • Kerry Faces Skeptical House Panel on Iran Nuclear Deal

    Secretary of State John Kerry experienced just how difficult it will be for the Obama Administration to get members of Congress on board with the interim nuclear agreement that was signed with Iran last month. Testifying before the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Kerry was hammered for nearly three hours by Democrats and Republicans alike about the incomplete nature of the deal that was negotiated in Geneva, the $7 billion in sanctions relief that Iran is due to receive over the next six months and whether any final agreement would allow the Islamic republic to preserve a low level uranium enrichment capability.

    Republican Ed Royce, the chairman of the committee, criticized what he saw as the administration’s soft negotiating strategy toward Iran, calling the agreement a much needed opportunity for the Iranians to receive billions of dollars without dismantling a single centrifuge.

    “My concern,” the California congressman said, “is that we have bargained away our fundamental position in exchange for a false confidence that we can effectively check Iran’s misuse of these key nuclear bombmaking technologies.” (more…)

  • Kerry Tries to Rescue Stalled Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

    America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, has a lot on his plate, from the upcoming round of nuclear negotiations with Iran to the global effort in Syria to verify and destroy Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons. Yet on Wednesday, he added another item to his “to do” list — spending a full day traveling between Israel and the West Bank to resurrect a peace process that both parties believe is on the brink of collapsing.

    After six months of persistent contact with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, Kerry achieved a breakthrough in the conflict that had eluded American officials the previous three years. That is, Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed to relaunch direct negotiations within a strict nine month timeframe. Given the enormous mistrust between Israel and the Palestinians over the core issues of the conflict, getting both men back to the negotiating table was a major obstacle. But by with sheer force of his personality, Kerry at least broke through that roadblock.

    Three months into the talks, however, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the process is failing to produce any concrete results. Nor is it building the diplomatic momentum that is required to sustain the dialogue for another six months. (more…)

  • Kerry’s Surprise Visit to Afghanistan Yields Draft Agreement

    Negotiations over an agreement for some American forces to remain in Afghanistan after 2014 have been stalled for some time but an unannounced visit to Kabul by Secretary of State John Kerry seems to have yielded some progress — and a draft agreement.

    Among the major differences holding up the negotiations for a Bilateral Security Agreement are longstanding Afghan demands for greater control and better access to American intelligence as well as the stipulation that remaining forces not be subject to Afghan law. Additionally, Afghan are concerned that the agreement lacks a security guarantee to protect the country from Pakistan while permitting the United States to conduct unilateral operations in Afghanistan. (more…)

  • America Condemns Syrian Gas Attack, Seen Preparing Strikes

    After nearly a week of internal deliberations and international debate over what appeared to be a chemical weapons attack in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear on Monday where America stands — and where it believes the blame rests.

    In a short statement at the State Department in front of reporters, Kerry delivered by far the most forceful message that has come out of the Obama Administration since the Syrian regime allegedly gassed hundreds of civilians in a suburb of the capital Damascus.

    “Let me be clear,” he Kerry. “The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders, by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. There is a reason that President Obama has made clear to the Assad regime that this international norm cannot be violated without consequences.” (more…)

  • Kerry Persuades Israel, Palestinians to Enter Peace Talks

    America’s secretary of state John Kerry concluded his meetings with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on Friday with a last-minute commitment to return to peace talks with the Israelis. The agreement, which came after four days of intense shuttle diplomacy by Kerry, could lead to proper negotiations in Washington DC next week, the first in five years.

    Kerry, who has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a defining issue during his tenure, was upbeat with reporters after his midnight meeting with Abbas. “I’m pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement,” he said. “This is a significant, and welcome, step forward.”

    Kerry’s work got an added boost during his travels to the region on Wednesday when the foreign ministers of the Arab League expressed full support for his efforts. The body earlier toned down its own peace initiative to Israel, promising a regional agreement among the Arabs that would grant the Jewish state full recognition in exchange for territorial concessions to the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. (more…)

  • Kerry-Lavrov Agreement Unlikely to Affect Syrian War

    As far as Arab and European countries and the United States are concerned, Russia has been anything but helpful in Syria. Three United Nations Security Council resolutions that would have sanctioned Syrian president Bashar Assad were vetoed by the Russians who have continued to sell military equipment to his regime.

    Secretary of State John Kerry sought to snap that streak when he traveled to Moscow last week and, to his credit, succeeded in one respect: getting the Russians to publicly support a transitional government in Syria.

    Secretary Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov both reaffirmed their commitment to the Geneva communiqué that the two powers signed in June of last year. It called for negotiations between the Assad regime and opposition in pursuit of an interim government. 

    Kerry was so upbeat about his most recent trip to Russia that he speculated that his new Syria initiative could begin in early June and said that a tremendous amount of preparation had already been done.

    Yet to the frustration of both the Americans and Russians, pledging allegiance to the Geneva accord and the theory of a transitional government in Syria is premised on the assumption that negotiations can stop the shooting and resolve the civil war. Despite both sides in the conflict deploying evermore brutal violence, the European Union and the United States still seem to hope that cooler heads will eventually prevail and that, however horrible the situation in Syria may be, its ramifications can be contained within Syria’s borders.

    The Syrians who are doing the fighting and dying do not appear to be viewing the Kerry-Lavrov initiative the same way. Grotesque scenes of massacres along sectarian lines, the execution of prisoners of war and the mutilation of bodies do not suggest that there is much room for meaningful talks.

    There have been no goodwill gestures from either the Assad regime or opposition umbrella groups besides public interest in the diplomatic route. As much as Russia, the United Nations and the United States might like to see a negotiated settlement, the protagonists are nowhere near agreement on the issues that are so important to ending the carnage: whether Assad can be a part of the equation; what Syria will look like in the future; how transitional justice for war crimes will be meted out; who will be allowed to serve in a transitional administration.

    The reality is that the fractious rebel movement on the ground, combined with President Assad’s determination to prevail and the radicalization that is taking place along sectarian and ideological lines, is not an environment that suits diplomacy well.

    Diplomacy can only succeed if one side is convinced that it will lose or if the combatants are convinced that they have more to gain from talking than fighting. Since both Assad and his opponents are going for broke and engaging in even more horrific human rights abuses, the compromise that Kerry and Lavrov are talking about, however commendable, is unlikely to yield anything concrete.

  • Initiative to Restart Peace Talks Stalls over Israeli Objections

    Solving the rift between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators is difficult enough when both are in the middle of a diplomatic session. But it is even harder when the two sides cannot agree on the terms of diplomacy to begin with.

    This is what Secretary of State John Kerry is experiencing in the Holy Land only a few months on the job and despite three high level visits to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

    No one assumed that getting the lagging peace process off the ground would be an easy task. Kerry, during his most recent visits to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, acknowledged as much when he told a news conference that everyone, even he, had a lot of homework to do before talks could resume.

    It was a polite way of saying that Israel and the Palestinians are still far apart on the issues that have long divided them, including the final borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements. (more…)

  • Kerry Could Revive 2002 Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan

    Much like President Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East last month, the White House played down a weekend visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by Secretary of State John Kerry who talked with officials from both sides in what is dubbed a “quiet” effort on the part of the United States to revive the peace process.

    Kerry spoke with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah as well as Israeli president Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Other than words that peace is desirable, possible and in the interest of all parties involved, nothing exciting was produced from all of Kerry’s meetings. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are, after all, widely divided on the core issues, let alone what a final settlement should look like. And despite talk of wanting to move the peace process forward, the mistrust between Jerusalem and Ramallah is at such a height that ordinary Palestinians are no longer sure that a two-state solution is possible anymore.

    Yet with John Kerry, the United States have an intensely focused diplomat with decades of experience in containing conflicts and finding ways to resolve them. Those who know the former Democratic senator well acknowledge that he has long taken a special interest in solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Kerry’s three trips to the Middle East in under a month is a testament to that desire and while recent diplomacy is certainly not on par with the Henry Kissinger and James Baker tours of previous decades, it is a strong signal that the Obama Administration wants to be more proactive than less. (more…)

  • John Kerry: From Swiftboating to Swift Confirmation

    Democratic senator John Kerry of Massachusetts speaks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, October 21, 2009
    Democratic senator John Kerry of Massachusetts speaks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC, October 21, 2009 (White House/Pete Souza)

    John Kerry’s ascension to the position of secretary of state isn’t just the culmination of one’s man career in public service. The successful nomination to this post of the man who went down to defeat against President George W. Bush in 2004, who many expected could lose his reelection at the time, is a reversal of fortune few could have anticipated eight years ago.

    Kerry’s fast confirmation to the position he now holds, with the near universal support of Republicans who have not been in the business of supporting President Barack Obama, is not only a reflection of his own qualifications and expertise. It’s indicative of a sea change in American politics since the 2004 election and an admission from the right that the Kerry worldview was right all along.

    Yet the anti-war crowd wasn’t always so ascendant. (more…)

  • As Secretary, Kerry Likely to Stress Diplomacy With Iran

    Early next year, Massachusetts senator John Kerry is likely to be appointed to the job that many officials in Washington DC believe that he always wanted: that of secretary of state.

    When President Barack Obama announced last week that Kerry was his pick to replace Hillary Clinton, who previously said that she would serve only a single term in the job, neither Democrats nor Republicans were at all surprised. Even before the nomination was made, Senator John McCain jokingly referred to his colleague as “Mr Secretary.” The implication being that if nominated, Kerry will likely sail through the Senate confirmation process without major hiccups.

    Kerry’s foreign policy views are nevertheless at odds with those of many conservatives in the legislature. Like most Democrats, he has been a vocal proponent of engaging with America’s enemies and working in the United Nations as a constructive member state. As a presidential candidate against George W. Bush in 2004, his repeated references to the United Nations got him into some trouble with the electorate, which largely regards the multilateral body as superfluous at best, but as a potential secretary of state, that very obsession with multilateralism and coalition-building should be quite useful. (more…)