President Obama to Give Speech as Congress Debates Iran Deal

President Obama is scheduled to speak at American University today to make the case for the Iran nuclear agreement. The location and speech were designed to evoke John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 “Strategy of Peace” speech, in which he called for negotiations with the Soviet Union. It is part of Obama’s latest push to convince ambivalent members of Congress to support the agreement before a vote in September. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preempted Obama with a webcast speech arguing that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed to in Vienna is dangerous, saying, “As a result of this deal, there will be more terrorism, there will be more attacks, and more people will die.”

Critical members of Congress are already starting to declare their position on the agreement. Just yesterday, three prominent Senate Democrats — Sens. Tim Kaine, Barbara Boxer, and Bill Nelson — announced they would be voting in favor of the deal. Their support will make it much more difficult for opponents to scuttle the agreement by overriding a presidential veto, despite the support of other Democrats who came out opposed to the deal yesterday, including Reps. Steve Israel, Nina Lowey, and Ted Deutch.

Israel Makes Arrest for Arson Attack

Israel has placed Mordechai Meyer, a resident of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, in administrative detention without trial on suspicion of involvement in the arson that killed a Palestinian toddler last week. Administrative detention without trial has traditionally been used in Israel for arrests of Palestinians, BBC reports, and Meyer is the first Jewish citizen to be held under a new policy approved by the Israeli security cabinet.

Headlines

• The U.S. government began conducting drone strikes in Syria from Turkey’s Incirlik air base over the weekend, and Turkey says an “extensive” campaign against the Islamic State will begin soon.

• Egypt is preparing to inaugurate a “new Suez Canal” on Thursday, which has been built parallel to the existing canal over the past year at a cost of more than $9 billion.

• Turkish jets carried out airstrikes on PKK positions in Daglica, in southeastern Turkey, after militants fired on a military base and killed two Turkish soldiers, according to Turkish officials.

• U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued an urgent call for increased aid to Palestinian refugees to close a $100 million shortfall in funding for UNRWA.

• Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem traveled to Tehran on Tuesday for meetings with Iranian and Russian officials; during the trip he said efforts to fight the Islamic State should be coordinated with the Assad regime.

Arguments and Analysis

“Saudi Arabia’s ‘Terrorist’ Allies in Yemen” (David Ottaway, Woodrow Wilson Center)

“So long as the Yemeni civil war drags on, the Saudis’ dependence on the Muslim Brotherhood to improve their fortunes on the battlefield, and eventually at the negotiating table, seems likely to endure. On the other hand, the durability of their alliance with al-Qaeda seems questionable. Right now, both Saudi Arabia and AQAP have a common enemy in the Houthis and a common rival in ISIS. But whether al-Qaeda has abandoned its long-held goal of toppling the Saudi royal family remains to be seen. In the meantime, the Saudis are certain to regard AQAP’s control of the Hadhramaut on the kingdom’s southern border as a major threat to the kingdom.”

“The limits of counterterrorism” (Daniel Byman, Order from Chaos)

“Preventing attacks on the U.S. homeland should remain a priority, and since 9/11 this has been a remarkable, though imperfect, success. But killing terrorists alone will not end terrorism. For much of the Middle East, fighting terrorism requires navigating regional civil wars. Although a look at the U.S. record on civil wars in the Middle East suggests pessimism, this poor record does not extend everywhere: in places as diverse as Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, and Uganda, the United States has successfully worked on statebuilding with allied regimes, building their capacity and enabling them to improve their performance in civil wars, better negotiate from a position of strength, and, of course, fight terrorism. Statebuilding assistance goes beyond working with security forces to improve their technical proficiency. Rather, it requires assistance in reforming and building political institutions on which the security forces should rest. Political systems should help countries moderate predatory elite behavior, bolster legitimacy, and weather shocks that might otherwise produce violence.”

-J. Dana Stuster

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