رودز بات شخصية محورية في صياغة الموقف الأميركي تجاه أحداث «الربيع
العربي»
واشنطن: مارك لاندلر*
بينما يستعد لزيارة منطقة الشرق الأوسط الأسبوع المقبل، يتوجه الرئيس باراك أوباما، كما يفعل كثيرا، إلى بنجامين رودز، نائب مستشار الأمن القومي، 35 عاما، صاحب الصوت الناعم والآراء القوية والمشهور في البيت الأبيض بكونه الرجل الذي يعرّف أوباما بالسياسة الخارجية. يعمل رودز على صياغة الخطاب الذي سيوجهه أوباما إلى الشعب الإسرائيلي في القدس كما هو مقرر، لكن يمتد نفوذه وتأثيره إلى ما هو أبعد من منصبه أو مسؤولية كتابة الخطابات. ساعد رودز، بفضل علاقته الشخصية بأوباما التي تعود إلى حملته الانتخابية عام 2008 والتقارب الفكري الفلسفي بينهما، في تشجيع رئيسه على تبني سياسة أكثر حماسا تجاه مصر وليبيا عندما اندلعت الثورة في البلدين عام 2011.
ويواجه هذا التأثير اختبارا آخر يتمثل في القضية السورية، التي يصر فيها الرئيس حتى هذه اللحظة على أن يكون التدخل الأميركي متواضعا رغم مرور عامين على الثورة التي خلفت 70 ألف قتيل. ويشعر رودز وأصدقاؤه وزملاؤه بالإحباط من السياسة التي لا تجدي نفعا، وأصبحوا داعمين بشدة للتدخل الهجومي من أجل دعم المعارضة السورية.
ويشير مسؤولو الإدارة الأميركية إلى أن رودز ليس هو الوحيد الذي يشعر بالإحباط من السياسة تجاه سوريا، حيث أوضح أن أوباما أيضا يبحث عن موقف أميركي مناسب يضع حدا للمأساة الإنسانية دون توريط الولايات المتحدة في صراع طائفي يقول عنه كثيرون في البيت الأبيض إنه يحمل الكثير من مواضع التشابه المقلقة مع العراق.
وفضّل ثلاثة مسؤولين سابقين في الإدارة، هم هيلاري كلينتون، وروبرت غيتس، وديفيد بترايوس، تسليح المعارضة، وهو موقف لم يكن رودز يؤيده في البداية. وقال دينيس ماكدونو، كبير موظفي البيت الأبيض الذي عمل عن كثب مع رودز عندما كان النائب الرئيسي لمستشار الأمن القومي: «هذا الأمر صعب على بن (بنجامين) مثلما هو صعب على الرئيس. إنه يهتم بالناس، ولا يمكن أن ترى ما يحدث في سوريا ولا تتألم، لكنه في الوقت ذاته إنسان واقعي».
من الطبيعي أن لا يكون ألم مسؤول في البيت الأبيض مؤثرا في توجه السياسة الخارجية الأميركية، لكن رودز يتمتع بقدرة على تأكيد وجوده، ليس فقط من خلال الطريقة التي يعبر بها الرئيس عن سياساته، لكن أيضا من خلال تشكيل السياسة. منذ عامين، عندما تجمع المتظاهرون في ميدان التحرير في القاهرة، حثّ رودز الرئيس أوباما على سحب الدعم الذي تقدمه الولايات المتحدة للرئيس مبارك في مصر منذ ثلاثة عقود. وبعد ذلك بأشهر، كان رودز من بين الذين يشجعون الرئيس على تدخل حلف شمال الأطلسي عسكريا في ليبيا من أجل وقف المذابح التي يرتكبها العقيد معمر القذافي.
وقال مايكل ماكفول، الذي عمل مع رودز في مجلس الأمن القومي: «لقد أصبح شخصية محورية في عملية كتابة الخطابات، ثم بعد ذلك في أحداث الربيع العربي الساخنة». ويعمل ماكفول حاليا كسفير أميركي لدى روسيا. وقالت سامانثا باور، أحد المسؤولين السابقين في مجلس الأمن القومي، والتي انضمت إليه في دعم التدخل العسكري في ليبيا: «إنه يتمتع بقدرة عالية على التكهن. لا أفهم من أين حصل بن على حكمة الرجل العجوز».
ويبدو أن رودز كوّن هذا النفوذ من دون إثارة استياء المستشارين الأكبر سنا والأكثر حنكة، وهذا دليل على أسلوب دبلوماسي ليس شائعا بين المقربين من أوباما، كما يقول زملاؤه. ومارس رودز نفوذه خارج منطقة الشرق الأوسط أيضا، إذ عمل مع جاكوب سوليفان، أحد أهم مساعدي وزيرة الخارجية السابقة هيلاري كلينتون، عام 2011 لإقناع أوباما بالتعامل مع الحكام العسكريين لميانمار (بورما سابقا) بعد الحصول على دعم أونغ سان سو تشي، الزعيمة المطالبة بالديمقراطية.
وقال كورت كامبيل، المساعد السابق لوزيرة الخارجية الذي أدار المفاوضات مع حكومة ميانمار: «الشخص، الذي وقف وراء الستار ولعب أكبر دور في الانفتاح على ميانمار والتعامل مع أونغ سان سو تشي، هو بين رودز».
ومن المرجح أن يكون إحداث تحول في سياسة أوباما تجاه سوريا أصعب من إقناعه بالتواصل مع ميانمار بالنظر إلى التعقيدات المحيطة بسوريا، والأوضاع الملتهبة في دول جوارها، والطبيعة الطاحنة للصراع، وحرص الرئيس الكبير على تجنب التورط في صراع عسكري آخر في منطقة الشرق الأوسط على حد قول مسؤولين. ولا تقصر الولايات المتحدة فقط دعمها لـ«الجيش السوري الحر» على الغذاء والمساعدات الطبية، بل وضع البيت الأبيض اسم إحدى الجماعات الثورية السنية الرئيسية، هي جبهة النصرة، على قائمة المنظمات الإرهابية، وهي سياسة تستعدي الكثير من السوريين لأداء الجماعة القوي في قتال الرئيس بشار الأسد.
ويقول زملاء رودز إنه عارض ذلك القرار، الذي دفع به مستشارون في الاستخبارات. كما يفضل تقديم دعم غير عسكري أكبر وتدريب يساعدهم في قتالهم ضد نظام الأسد، وهو موقف تتبناه بريطانيا وحلفاء آخرون.
ورفض رودز التعليق تفصيلا على دوره في المشاورات السياسية، وقال: «وظيفتي الرئيسة، التي طالما كانت كذلك، هي أن أكون شخصا يمثل رأي الرئيس في هذه القضايا». ويعد رودز من عدة أوجه مرشحا غير مرجح لشغل وظيفة في قلب جهاز الأمن القومي، فهو كاتب طموح من مانهاتن بدأ رواية لم تكتمل بعد ولا تزال حبيسة الأدراج باسم «Oasis of Love» «واحة الحب»، تدور أحداثها حول امرأة تتجه إلى كنيسة ضخمة في هيوستن مخلفة وراءها قلب حبيبها جريحا. إنه ابن لأب من تكساس ينتمي إلى الكنيسة الأسقفية ويميل إلى النهج المحافظ، وأم يهودية أكثر تحررا من نيويورك. وعمل لفترة قصيرة في الحملة الانتخابية لعمدة نيويورك رودولف جولياني عام 1997 وكان يعيش حياة الكتاب في حي كوينز عندما وقعت هجمات الحادي عشر من سبتمبر (أيلول) 2001، وشاهد من بروكلين انهيار مركز التجارة العالمي. ودفعته الصدمة من هذه التجربة إلى الانتقال إلى واشنطن عام 2002. وذهب للعمل لدى مستشار السياسة الخارجية الديمقراطي، والنائب السابق، لي هاميلتون، حيث ساعده في صياغة تقرير لجنة أحداث الحادي عشر من سبتمبر، فضلا عن تقرير مجموعة الدراسة عن العراق.
وبزغ نجم رودز عندما كتب خطاب أوباما التاريخي الموجه للعالم الإسلامي في القاهرة في يونيو (حزيران) 2009. ومن المرجح أن يركز رودز، عند كتابته لخطاب أوباما الأسبوع المقبل، على الدعم الأميركي الذي لا يتزعزع لإسرائيل. ومع ذلك إذا تطلعنا إلى التاريخ، سنرى أنه من المحتمل أن يزل عند الإشارة إلى مستقبل سوريا الديمقراطي. ويقول ماكفول: «طالما كان بن ممسكا بالقلم. ويمكن لبن دائما، نظرا لعلاقته الشخصية القوية بالرئيس، أن يضع السياسات من خلال خطابات وتصريحات الرئيس أوباما.
منقول عن الشرق الأوسط
WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to visit Israel next week, he is turning, as he often does, to Benjamin J. Rhodes, a 35-year-old deputy national security adviser with a soft voice, strong opinions and a reputation around the White House as the man who channels Mr. Obama on foreign policy.
Mr. Rhodes is drafting the address to the Israeli people the president plans to give in Jerusalem, but his influence extends beyond what either his title or speechwriting duties suggest. Drawing on personal ties and a philosophical kinship with Mr. Obama that go back to the 2008 campaign, Mr. Rhodes helped prod his boss to take a more activist policy toward Egypt and Libya when those countries erupted in 2011.
Now that influence is being put to the test again on the issue of Syria, where the president has so far resisted more than modest American involvement. After two years of civil war that have left 70,000 people dead, Mr. Rhodes, his friends and colleagues said, is deeply frustrated by a policy that is not working, and has become a strong advocate for more aggressive efforts to support the Syrian opposition.
Administration officials note that Mr. Rhodes is not alone in his frustration over Syria, pointing out that Mr. Obama, too, is searching for an American response that ends the humanitarian tragedy, while not enmeshing the United States in a sectarian conflict that many in the White House say bears unsettling similarities to Iraq. Three former officials of the administration — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Robert Gates and David Petraeus — favored arming the opposition, a position Mr. Rhodes did not initially support.
“It’s hard for Ben in the same way it’s hard for the president,” said Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, who worked closely with Mr. Rhodes in his previous job as the principal deputy national security adviser. “He cares about people. You can’t see what’s happening in Syria and not be torn by it. At the same time, he’s very realistic.”
Normally, the anguish of a White House deputy would matter little to the direction of American foreign policy. But Mr. Rhodes has had a knack for making himself felt, not just in the way the president expresses his policies but in how he formulates them.
Two years ago, when protesters thronged Tahrir Square in Cairo, Mr. Rhodes urged Mr. Obama to withdraw three decades of American support for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. A few months later, Mr. Rhodes was among those agitating for the president to back a NATO military intervention in Libya to head off a slaughter by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
“He became, first in the speechwriting process, and later, in the heat of the Arab Spring, a central figure,” said Michael A. McFaul, who worked with Mr. Rhodes in the National Security Council and is now the American ambassador to Russia.
Samantha Power, another former National Security Council colleague who joined him in advocating intervention in Libya, said: “He has a very high batting average in terms of prognostication. I don’t understand where Ben gets his ‘old man’ wisdom.”
Remarkably, Mr. Rhodes seems to have amassed his influence without rankling older and more seasoned advisers — a testament, colleagues say, to a diplomatic style not always common to members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle.
Mr. Rhodes has exerted influence outside the Middle East as well. In 2011, he worked with Jacob J. Sullivan, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, to persuade Mr. Obama to engage with the military rulers of Myanmar, formerly Burma, after gaining the endorsement of the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
“The person behind the scenes who played the largest role in the opening to Burma and the engagement with Aung San Suu Kyi was Ben Rhodes,” said Kurt M. Campbell, a former assistant secretary of state who led the negotiations with the Myanmar government.
Engineering a shift in Mr. Obama’s Syria policy is probably more difficult than persuading him to reach out to Myanmar, officials said, given the complexities of Syria, the volatility of its neighborhood, the grinding nature of the conflict, and the president’s deep aversion to getting entangled in another military conflict in the Middle East.
Not only is the United States limiting its support of the Free Syrian Army to food rations and medical supplies, the White House has designated one of the main Sunni insurgent groups, al-Nusra front, as a terrorist organization — a policy that alienated many Syrians because of the group’s effectiveness in fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
Colleagues say Mr. Rhodes opposed that decision, which was pushed by intelligence advisers. He also favors equipping the rebels with more robust nonlethal gear and training that would help them in their fight against Mr. Assad’s government, a position shared by Britain and other allies.
Mr. Rhodes declined to comment in detail on his role in policy deliberations, saying “my main job, which has always been my job, is to be the person who represents the president’s view on these issues.”
In many ways, Mr. Rhodes is an improbable choice for a job at the heart of the national security apparatus. An aspiring writer from Manhattan, he has an unfinished novel in a drawer, “Oasis of Love,” about a woman who joins a megachurch in Houston, breaking her boyfriend’s heart.
The son of a conservative-leaning Episcopalian father from Texas and a more liberal Jewish mother from New York, Mr. Rhodes grew up in a home where even sports loyalties were divided: he and his mother are ardent Mets fans; his father and his older brother, David, root for the Yankees.
“No one in that house agreed on anything,” said David Rhodes, who is now the president of CBS News.
Benjamin Rhodes, who worked briefly for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s re-election campaign in 1997, was living a writer’s life in Queens on Sept. 11, 2001, when he watched from the Brooklyn waterfront as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The trauma of that experience, he said, led him to move to Washington in 2002.
Mr. Rhodes went to work for a Democratic foreign-policy elder, former Representative Lee Hamilton, helping draft the 9/11 Commission report as well as the Iraq Study Group report. That report was a template for the anti-Iraq war positions taken by Barack Obama, then a senator, whose campaign Mr. Rhodes joined as a speechwriter in 2008.
At the White House, Mr. Rhodes first came to prominence after he wrote Mr. Obama’s landmark address to the Muslim world in Cairo in June 2009. The speech was notable for Mr. Obama’s assertion that governments should “reflect the will of the people,” prefiguring his policy in dealing with Mr. Mubarak and Colonel Qaddafi.
In writing Mr. Obama’s speech next week, Mr. Rhodes is likely to focus on America’s unshakable support for Israel. But if history is any guide, he will slip in a reference to Syria’s democratic future.
“Ben always holds on to the pen,” Mr. McFaul said. “Because of his close personal relationship with the president, Ben can always make policy through the speeches and statements made by President Obama.”
By MARK LANDLER
Now that influence is being put to the test again on the issue of Syria, where the president has so far resisted more than modest American involvement. After two years of civil war that have left 70,000 people dead, Mr. Rhodes, his friends and colleagues said, is deeply frustrated by a policy that is not working, and has become a strong advocate for more aggressive efforts to support the Syrian opposition.
Administration officials note that Mr. Rhodes is not alone in his frustration over Syria, pointing out that Mr. Obama, too, is searching for an American response that ends the humanitarian tragedy, while not enmeshing the United States in a sectarian conflict that many in the White House say bears unsettling similarities to Iraq. Three former officials of the administration — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Robert Gates and David Petraeus — favored arming the opposition, a position Mr. Rhodes did not initially support.
“It’s hard for Ben in the same way it’s hard for the president,” said Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, who worked closely with Mr. Rhodes in his previous job as the principal deputy national security adviser. “He cares about people. You can’t see what’s happening in Syria and not be torn by it. At the same time, he’s very realistic.”
Normally, the anguish of a White House deputy would matter little to the direction of American foreign policy. But Mr. Rhodes has had a knack for making himself felt, not just in the way the president expresses his policies but in how he formulates them.
Two years ago, when protesters thronged Tahrir Square in Cairo, Mr. Rhodes urged Mr. Obama to withdraw three decades of American support for President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. A few months later, Mr. Rhodes was among those agitating for the president to back a NATO military intervention in Libya to head off a slaughter by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
“He became, first in the speechwriting process, and later, in the heat of the Arab Spring, a central figure,” said Michael A. McFaul, who worked with Mr. Rhodes in the National Security Council and is now the American ambassador to Russia.
Samantha Power, another former National Security Council colleague who joined him in advocating intervention in Libya, said: “He has a very high batting average in terms of prognostication. I don’t understand where Ben gets his ‘old man’ wisdom.”
Remarkably, Mr. Rhodes seems to have amassed his influence without rankling older and more seasoned advisers — a testament, colleagues say, to a diplomatic style not always common to members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle.
Mr. Rhodes has exerted influence outside the Middle East as well. In 2011, he worked with Jacob J. Sullivan, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, to persuade Mr. Obama to engage with the military rulers of Myanmar, formerly Burma, after gaining the endorsement of the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
“The person behind the scenes who played the largest role in the opening to Burma and the engagement with Aung San Suu Kyi was Ben Rhodes,” said Kurt M. Campbell, a former assistant secretary of state who led the negotiations with the Myanmar government.
Engineering a shift in Mr. Obama’s Syria policy is probably more difficult than persuading him to reach out to Myanmar, officials said, given the complexities of Syria, the volatility of its neighborhood, the grinding nature of the conflict, and the president’s deep aversion to getting entangled in another military conflict in the Middle East.
Not only is the United States limiting its support of the Free Syrian Army to food rations and medical supplies, the White House has designated one of the main Sunni insurgent groups, al-Nusra front, as a terrorist organization — a policy that alienated many Syrians because of the group’s effectiveness in fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
Colleagues say Mr. Rhodes opposed that decision, which was pushed by intelligence advisers. He also favors equipping the rebels with more robust nonlethal gear and training that would help them in their fight against Mr. Assad’s government, a position shared by Britain and other allies.
Mr. Rhodes declined to comment in detail on his role in policy deliberations, saying “my main job, which has always been my job, is to be the person who represents the president’s view on these issues.”
In many ways, Mr. Rhodes is an improbable choice for a job at the heart of the national security apparatus. An aspiring writer from Manhattan, he has an unfinished novel in a drawer, “Oasis of Love,” about a woman who joins a megachurch in Houston, breaking her boyfriend’s heart.
The son of a conservative-leaning Episcopalian father from Texas and a more liberal Jewish mother from New York, Mr. Rhodes grew up in a home where even sports loyalties were divided: he and his mother are ardent Mets fans; his father and his older brother, David, root for the Yankees.
“No one in that house agreed on anything,” said David Rhodes, who is now the president of CBS News.
Benjamin Rhodes, who worked briefly for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s re-election campaign in 1997, was living a writer’s life in Queens on Sept. 11, 2001, when he watched from the Brooklyn waterfront as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The trauma of that experience, he said, led him to move to Washington in 2002.
Mr. Rhodes went to work for a Democratic foreign-policy elder, former Representative Lee Hamilton, helping draft the 9/11 Commission report as well as the Iraq Study Group report. That report was a template for the anti-Iraq war positions taken by Barack Obama, then a senator, whose campaign Mr. Rhodes joined as a speechwriter in 2008.
At the White House, Mr. Rhodes first came to prominence after he wrote Mr. Obama’s landmark address to the Muslim world in Cairo in June 2009. The speech was notable for Mr. Obama’s assertion that governments should “reflect the will of the people,” prefiguring his policy in dealing with Mr. Mubarak and Colonel Qaddafi.
In writing Mr. Obama’s speech next week, Mr. Rhodes is likely to focus on America’s unshakable support for Israel. But if history is any guide, he will slip in a reference to Syria’s democratic future.
“Ben always holds on to the pen,” Mr. McFaul said. “Because of his close personal relationship with the president, Ben can always make policy through the speeches and statements made by President Obama.”
By MARK LANDLER
Published: March 15, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment