McCain, Obama Advisers Spar Over Options for Syria and Iran

Ron Kampeas
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

LEESBURG, Va.

A McCain administration would discourage Israeli-Syrian peace talks and refrain from actively engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

That was the message delivered over the weekend by two McCain advisers -- Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Richard Williamson, the Bush administration's special envoy to Sudan -- during a retreat hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at the Lansdowne Resort in rural Virginia.

One of Barack Obama's representatives -- Richard Danzig, a Clinton administration Navy secretary -- said the Democratic presidential candidate would take the opposite approach.

In an interview with the Atlantic magazine over the summer, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) insisted that, in his presidency, he would serve as the chief negotiator in the peace process. But at the retreat, Boot said pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian deal would not be a top priority in a McCain administration, adding that as many as 30 crises across the globe require more-urgent attention.

Betraying Lebanon
Boot called the Bush administration's efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian talks a mistake.

He also cast Israel's talks with Syria as betraying the stake that the United States has invested in Lebanon's fragile democracy.

"John McCain is not going to betray the lawfully elected government of Lebanon," Boot said.

Williamson was more nuanced in addressing the issue of how the message would be sent.

"Israel should not be dictated to in dealing with Syria or dealing with Lebanon," he said, addressing Israeli and some pro-Israel resentment in recent years at pressure by the Bush administration to stifle such negotiations.

That Williamson was endorsing such views at all signified how closely the McCain campaign has allied itself with neoconservatives. A veteran of the Reagan and first Bush administrations, Williamson generally would be more identified with Republican "realists" who have eschewed the grand claims of neoconservatives to a new American empire. Yet, here he was, echoing their talking points on several fronts.

McCain, until recently, has kept a foot in both the realist and neoconservative camps. The session at Lansdowne appeared to suggest that he has chosen sides, opting for policies backed by the outgoing Bush administration.

Both McCain advisers insisted, however, that their candidate was synthesizing the two camps as a "realistic idealist."

McCain would be a "leader who will press for more liberal democratic change" and "is realistic about the prospects of diplomacy and just as importantly its limits," said Boot, echoing what has become the twin walking and talking points of neoconservatism: a muscular foreign policy and an affinity for promoting democracy.

Surrogates for Obama, an Illinois senator, re-emphasized their commitment to stepping up U.S. diplomatic efforts. Danzig said an Obama administration would revive the idea of a special envoy for pursuing a peace deal.

The "appropriate level of presidential engagement requires that the United States designate someone whose energies are predominantly allocated to this," Danzig said.

Someone like Tony Blair, the former British prime minister now leading efforts to build a Palestinian civil society, might fit the bill, he added.

Surrogates from both campaigns appeared to agree on the need to isolate Iran until it stands down from any type of nuclear weapons program. Each side emphasized that it would keep the military option on the table and enhance sanctions.

It was clear that each campaign had devoted a great deal of attention to the issue. Officials from both campaigns signed on to a Washington Institute for Near East Policy policy paper this summer that called for closer U.S.-Israel coordination on Iran, born out of concerns that Israel's leadership was getting closer to contemplating the option of a strike.

Williamson and Richard Clarke, the former top anti-terrorism official in both the Clinton and current Bush administrations who spoke for Obama, described the near-impossibility of taking out a weapons program that is believed to be diffuse and hidden in population centers. Clarke added the possibility of covert action against Iran, without details -- a first for either campaign.

The sole difference was over Obama's pledge not to count out a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president who has denied the Holocaust and rejected the legitimacy of Israel's existence.

"What could such a meeting possibly accomplish?" Boot challenged.

Danzig replied that it would make it easier for Obama to rally worldwide support for sanctions.

"These things require a community of nations," he said.

Threats Have Grown
Danzig cast Obama's emphasis on diplomacy in terms of Israel's security, a pitch tuned to the Washington Institute's pro-Israel orientation.

"The threats and dangers are more substantial than they were eight years ago," he said.

McCain's advisers attempted to deflect comparisons between McCain and Bush. In trying to turn such comparisons against the Obama campaign, Boot noted that eight years ago he favored "another presidential candidate with not much experience in national security policy" -- George W. Bush -- "and we've seen the implications."

The Washington Institute crowd, hawkish in its predilections and likelier to favor McCain's foreign policy, would, nonetheless, only allow the McCain surrogates to take the character and experience issue so far.

Fred Lafer, the institute's president emeritus, pressed Boot on why McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin, a foreign policy novice, as his running mate if he was committed to national security.

Boot said "she has as much" foreign policy experience as Obama, prompting cries of "No!" and "What?"