Ian Bremmer

As the world convened at the U.N. General Assembly last week, the willingness of the Obama administration to risk blood and treasure promoting democracy abroad was on full display: Barack Obama gave a stirring speech defending American values and asking other democracies to adopt them. But Obama’s rhetoric doesn’t tell the whole story. He didn’t deliver his speech until after an appearance on a daytime chat show, in obvious support of his re-election campaign.

Many foreign policy experts have criticized Obama for wasting time with Barbara and Whoopi on The View when he could’ve been engaging with foreign leaders on the East Side of Manhattan. But the experts’ takeaway from Obama’s priorities last week is no different than it has been from the administration’s response to months of civil war in Syria, the teeter-tottering of Libya, the reluctance to pose a credible military threat for Iran and the refusal to engage in the Middle East peace process.

The U.S. is willing to do less on the world stage than it has since the onset of World War Two. In the long term, this reset of foreign policy and military initiatives may yield the country a peace dividend. In the short term, there are three international issues where the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly and where, in the past, a U.S. president might have intervened. Let’s look at them:

1. Syria. The Assad regime has engaged in deplorable behavior. But the U.S. has been extremely reluctant to support the opposition without a clear identity, leader or mission beyond overthrowing the regime. Furthermore, nothing about the Libya experience has given the U.S. any reason to do anything differently. It’s completely unclear that U.S. intervention in Syria would put U.S. interests in any better shape in that country, or outside of it. The Iraq lesson was simple – that democracy building is very expensive. And Libya taught us more: Regime change itself hurts and can’t be done on the cheap. Furthermore, when it came time for the U.S. to garner international support for its limited Libya mission, Russia could not ignore Gaddafi’s bombast and promise to exterminate the rebels, and therefore could not block the necessary U.N. resolution. When it comes to Syria, Russia won’t provide international cover for a U.S. intervention. Assad gets a pass, despite his brutal war and the fact that it is beginning to reach into bordering states as well. The knock-on effect is more instability in the Middle East – but that seems to be something the Obama administration has decided it can live with.

2. Iran. Here, the U.S. has actually been doing a good job eliciting international pressure on the regime over its quest for nuclear weapons. Rightly so: This is a bigger, global problem. But how much pressure can be brought to bear on Iran, given what’s going on across the region? The Obama administration can say, “Iran, you can’t develop nuclear weapons, or else,” but the question becomes, “or else, what?” Setting out a thick red line is a big problem in this environment. The U.S., according to reports, is running a rather effective sabotage operation on Iran’s labs, but Israel’s current government is apoplectic that Uncle Sam is not sending in the cavalry. Israel, here, is at great risk of appearing to cry wolf, losing the support it has in the international community should the situation in Iran become worse. And Tehran would, it seems, be more willing to declare itself at war with the U.S. to distract the Iranian public from the pain of economic sanctions.

3. Israel and Palestine. While Israel might look like a loser when it comes to Iran, it’s a winner when it comes to its own territorial dispute, no matter who wins the U.S. election in November. Mitt Romney is on the record as saying the Palestinians don’t seem to want peace. When, if ever, has a major party presidential candidate uttered a statement like that? Neither he nor Obama, in other words, intend to use any political capital on another meaningless accord. The message from U.S. politicians to Jerusalem: “We’re done trying to fix this. No more pressure on settlements, or anything else. Good luck.” Israel gets a nearly free hand to deal with Palestine, because there are enough crises in the world that set off anti-American demonstrations, and there’s little need to create another. What that means for Palestinians, though, is the end of American support for their claims, and possibly the end of restraint by Israel.

What all three situations come back to is that the foreign policy implications of the 2012 election are virtually nil. Americans are consumed by domestic issues like the economy and unemployment. Despite the fact that Romney paints Obama as an apologist, a declinist, an unpatriotic leader-from-behind, both are peddling roughly the same foreign policy. Romney is setting a theme and a tone to attack Obama, but it’s mere background music. Whichever candidate is elected will, for different reasons, tell the military “you’re not going to bomb that.” All the rest is posturing.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 25, 2012.   REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Ian Bremmer
The opinions expressed are his own.

If President Obama thinks he’s having a tough month, he’s got nothing on Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting the cost of living. In New York, the Palestinians are readying a statehood resolution at the United Nations. In Ankara, the Turkish government has expelled the Israeli ambassador from the country. And in Cairo, an Egyptian crowd is taking the job on themselves, attacking the Israeli embassy.

Of all of these events, though, Turkey is the biggest worry. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has steadily escalated an anti-Israel tack for over a year now, most recently by accusing Israel of behaving like a “spoiled child.” More directly, Erdogan has also proclaimed that the Turkish navy will stop the planned start of gas drilling explorations off the Cyprus coast by an Israel-Cypriot consortium. That’s tantamount to threatening armed conflict. Why is Turkey so ascendant in Middle East politics, to Israel’s dismay? There are three very good reasons:

1. The U.S. is playing less of a role in the Middle East.

Under President Obama, the U.S. has become a “taker” not a “maker” of foreign policy there. Simply put, this Administration has spent less time on the Middle East peace question than any other since the creation of the Israeli state. With all the issues facing Obama at home — joblessness, a tanking economy and his own re-election, to name a few — and all the more pressing international issues, like winding down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and dealing with the euro zone and China — Israel has taken a political backseat. As NATO allies like Turkey fill the void and create their own regional strategies, Israel, being in the most unnatural geopolitical position there, has had the hardest time establishing its own power center.

2. A newfound sense of Islamic populism.

It’s been almost a year since the first rumblings of the Arab spring. With the Middle East very much still unstable — albeit a different kind of instability than has usually been evident — it’s been necessary for governments of all stripes to start listening and acceding to the demands of their people. Turkey’s prime minister is far from clinging to power, but it’s safe to say that taking a hard line on Israel is low hanging fruit for any leader in the Islamic world, even in a country with a longstanding secular tradition.

3. A vacuum at the top of the developing world.

There’s a spot to fill in the ranks of emerging market world leaders, and it’s at the very head of the pack. Thanks to factors in and out of his control, no one looks more likely than Erdogan to become the dean of those ranks. Following in the footsteps of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Brazil’s Lula, Erdogan is at the helm of a country that appears ready to step up onto the regional and global stage. Turkish leadership is about to get a new meaning — one that extends beyond a Turkish’s prime minister’s simple advocacy of Turkish interests around the globe. Erdogan has a chance to be out in front on issues important to emerging economies worldwide — and that could become an issue for Israel.

Even in the context of their own history, Israel is right now looking very short on friends. While the country is under little serious internal or external economic pressure, the political and security issues there are getting more and more troublesome. That may be why Israel has stayed very quiet on the diplomatic front as of late, with leaders hoping to keep their heads down and wait for a more propitious environment in which to stake out their political ground. But as the Palestinian recognition issue in the UN is likely to soon renders that stance untenable, Netanyahu will have to find another tack. All of this makes ominous the prospects of broader hostilities breaking out around Israel. And the military force best poised to create confrontation is none other than Turkey.

Though the Cypriot-Israeli gas drilling project (the one Turkey has threatened to blockade) is likely to be resolved with the help of some American intervention, it’s hard to ignore the weak signals emanating from the Middle East that make a conflict no longer unthinkable. Unlikely, absolutely, but an Israeli-Turkey naval confrontation would no longer be the most surprising headline to wake up to one morning.

If such an event came to pass, the U.S. would find itself in quite a pickle. Again, Turkey is a NATO ally — an attack on one is an attack on all — and yet Israel is, despite the recent cool feelings between Obama and Netanyahu, America’s strategic partner in the region. The U.S. would try to de-escalate any standoff, but it would be unable to take a strong stance in such a conflict. That would leave Germany, of all countries, as Israel’s best friend. What an unfortunate irony.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: Palestinian schoolboys hold a poster depicting Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a rally at Gaza Seaport calling on Erdogan to visit the Gaza Strip September 13, 2011. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah

By Ian Bremmer
The opinons expressed are his own.

As violent protests rock the Arab world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government has tried to keep a low profile. It has largely succeeded. That’s about to change.

This year’s upheaval in North Africa and the Middle East is not quite finished. As President Saleh recovers from injuries suffered during an attack on Yemen’s presidential palace, the country remains plagued with protests and crackdowns. Libya’s Qaddafi clings to power, Syria’s Assad copes with surges of public anger, and Egypt’s zigzag path toward democracy reminds us how hard it is to fill the hole left behind by a castoff autocrat.

Israelis have watched closely from the sidelines to better understand what all this turmoil means for their future. As the dust begins to settle, it has become clear that they have plenty to worry about. Populism is taking root in the Middle East, a region where ordinary people have been forced for years to scream in unison to make themselves heard. Now they find that they have the power to bring about change. In response, Arab leaders—the newly elevated, those clinging to power, and even those simply facing a more uncertain future—are now listening to public opinion much more closely.

That’s bad news for Israel, because one of the most popular causes across the Middle East is a more genuine and vigorous defense of Palestinians. The Arab world’s uprisings have had virtually nothing to do with Israel. They are spontaneous expressions of public outrage that governments are corrupt, that average citizens have no power to do anything about it, that living standards aren’t rising, and that nothing ever changes. But the protests have now empowered large numbers of people who also want to see Israel face enormous political pressure.

They’re about to get their wish. In New York next month, Palestinians will seek UN recognition of statehood, and the General Assembly will likely vote to give it to them. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, is well aware that tides are moving in his favor. Not content with a symbolic declaration of his people’s right to form a state, Abbas has pledged to seek UN member status for the new state of Palestine. That’s almost certainly a bridge too far, but he most likely will win enough votes to move the Palestinian Authority from “non-member entity status” to “non-member state status.” The difference is important because, at the very least, it would give the PA greater standing at the UN and other international organizations. It’s also an important psychological achievement that will more deeply legitimize a Palestine state in the eyes of many nations.

America is Israel’s only reliable ally, but the White House wants no part of the UN theatrics. President Obama would welcome an opportunity to prove his commitment to support Israel, and he’ll make clear both Washington’s opposition to a General Assembly move and U.S. intent to veto in the Security Council any Palestinian effort to acquire full UN membership as a state. But he’d also like a chance to back the Arab world’s lunge toward self-determination. He won’t be able to support both sides in September, and he faces much more immediate challenges at home. Reviving the US economy, creating jobs, managing a draw-down of troops from Afghanistan while battling increasingly aggressive Republicans will leave the president with little extra time and political capital to spend on Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic fireworks.

The bad news for Israel is that Palestinians are aware of the limits on what they can get, and will likely focus their fight on the General Assembly, not the Security Council, where Obama wouldn’t cast America’s veto. Add the famously troubled relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, and Israel is about to look more isolated than ever.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Photo: A woman holds a Palestinian flag during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification soccer match between Thailand and the Palestinian Territories at A-Ram stadium near Jerusalem July 28, 2011. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman