When President Obama announced his plan to withdrawal the 33,000 surge forces from Afghanistan by the end of next summer, he said that by 2014, the United States will have completed its security mission in Afghanistan:

After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014 this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.

But in an interview with Radio Free Europe, outgoing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry suggested the U.S. military will be in Afghanistan well beyond 2014:

What we anticipate, as long as we’re welcome here, is that for many more years we’ll have our military forces provide training assistance, assistance in equipping your forces, providing certain capabilities that your forces may lack, for years into the future. And we also would anticipate that your forces and ours will serve together in conducting counterterrorist operations against our common international terrorist enemies.

Indeed, the Guardian reported last month that Afghan and U.S. officials “are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades.”

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), who, along with Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), is leading the charge in Congress to push Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan at a faster pace, said recently the the U.S. needs a specific plan, with benchmarks, to withdraw totally by 2014. Without such a plan, he warned, “2014 becomes 2015, 2015 becomes 2016, and we still have thousands of troops in Afghanistan.”

With the international Quartet unable to relaunch talks between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab League throwing its support behind a Palestinian bid at the United Nations, the prospect of a vote on Palestinian statehood in September is looming large on the horizon. But Israel and its U.S. ally are undertaking a furious diplomatic effort to avert the vote or defeat it, with a potential U.S. Security Council veto hanging over the proceedings.

Henry Siegman, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the former 16-year head of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), spoke by phone to ThinkProgress to share his thoughts on how we got here, what the Palestinians are looking to get out of the U.N. and what the U.S. should do about it all.

You’ve shown support for the Palestinian initiative to have their statehood recognized by the U.N. Do you think the U.S. should get out of the way and not cast a veto in the Security Council?

I think the United States ought to do more than that, but at the very least ought to stop being the major obstructer to progress in the situation by getting out of the way. The reason the United States so far has not only been unable to make any progress and bring the situation forward, but so far has been the main player preventing any progress, is because the United States has taken the position that the only way to make any progress in this situation is a renewal of the peace process, getting [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas to talk to each other. If there is anything to be learned from years of disappointment and failure, it’s that the so-called peace process is simply a vehicle for Israel to pretend there is some potential for progress even as on the ground they are making it impossible because of their settlement project. There is a basic dishonesty here. The United States, instead of saying, “This is a fraud,” says instead Israel wants to see a two-state solution, and thus provides a cover for Israel to expand its settlements on the ground and make an outcome absolutely impossible. So it’s in that sense that I’m saying the U.S. is the major obstacle. Because for years the assumption has been that the United States is uniquely in a position to bring about an agreement because of its leverage with Israel. But it turns out the U.S. is captive to Israel’s plans.

The U.S. says that the only way for a solution to be brought about is a negotiated deal between the two parties. You’ve written that you don’t think this is quite correct.

It’s not only not quite correct; it’s absolutely wrong. There are two reasons this is totally unreal. For nearly twenty years now — since Oslo, that is — we have been trying to move the parties beyond where they’ve been. And every effort, every round of negotiations, has failed. The parties have not come closer. The only thing that has happened is that Israel has succeeded in creating the network of settlements and support infrastructure that will make a Palestinian state impossible. There are people on the ground who think the two state solution is impossible because of that.

There is a reason the peace process is a hollow exercise. The assumption all along has been that what is needed to achieve a breakthrough is a change in the modalities of the peace process that would enable the two parties to reach an agreement, something both of them really want to do, but have been prevented from doing because of years of mistrust and conflict. So what is needed is an honest broker – i.e., the U.S. — who would help the parties to overcome existing obstacles. The U.S. believed itself to be the only mediator who could facilitate an agreement, and the rest of the world agreed. But this was based on a completely false understanding of the reality of the situation. Read more

Republicans and neocons who had either previously called on the Obama administration to recall U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford or tried to block his confirmation as ambassador have been fairly quiet since Ford’s bold move to join protesters in the Syrian city of Hama to demonstrate against the Assad regime. Ford’s move won wide praise from analysts here in the U.S., and even from the Syrian pro-democracy activists themselves.

Not only has Ford seemed to embolden the anti-Assad movement in Syria, but Ford himself and senior Obama administration officials have said his presence there gleans valuable information, as Foreign Policy’s Marc Lynch reported:

Ford’s conversations were one of their most important sources of information in assessing the Syrian scene. This is one key reason why they considered his presence essential even before his electrifying visit to Hama persuaded most of their critics of his value.

Yet the neocons at the Bill Kristol-led Foreign Policy Initiative (formerly Iraq war cheerleading outfit the Project for a New American Century) aren’t satisfied with Ford’s work. In fact, they still want him recalled. In a “Fact Sheet” released yesterday on “Five Steps to Hasten Assad’s Exit,” FPI acknowledged Ford’s “praiseworthy” trip to Hama, but still called on Obama to withdraw him anyway:

President Obama should recall the U.S. Ambassador to Syria — unless the administration is willing to use him as a proactive and public advocate for the Syrian people in their struggle against Assad. Notwithstanding Ambassador Robert Ford’s praiseworthy visit to Hama on July 8, 2011, the continued presence of a U.S. envoy in Damascus lends legitimacy to the Assad regime.

While FPI doesn’t specify what “a proactive and public advocate for the Syrian people” means outside of what Ford has already been doing, later in the “Fact Sheet,” the organization seems to set some fairly high expectations for engaging Syria:

Despite the Obama administration’s strategy of engagement with Syria, Assad has not renounced his support of terrorism, and his regime’s barbaric campaign against peaceful protesters demonstrates that its sole interest is to maintain power.

Perhaps FPI doesn’t understand how diplomacy and engagement work because Ford’s role as ambassador to Syria, particularly during the uprising, isn’t to bring down Assad. As Ford told Lynch, “This is not about Americans,” he said, adding, “It’s not an American decision [to make political demands]. What we will not do is to claim to speak for them. They are capable of speaking for themselves.”

Hawkish pro-Israel positions have become a litmus test for Republican candidates, particularly in the 2012 presidential campaign. And one of the political operatives driving this phenomenon is none other than Ralph Reed, the disgraced lobbyist who left the Christian Coalition to form Century Strategies. Reed’s newest group, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, has actively encouraged Tea Party activists and GOP politicians to champion far right Israeli priorities. Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Danny Danon helped headline Reed’s last Faith and Freedom conference, where nearly every GOP presidential candidate spoke.

An investigation by ThinkProgress has found that Reed’s pro-Israel organizing has ties to a set of political operatives based in Washington, DC and Jerusalem. Since 2009, Reed’s lobbying firm Century Strategies has received at least $140,400 from The Israel Project (TIP). Click the screen shot below to enlarge a picture of the document revealing one of the contracts between Reed and TIP:

TIP was founded in 2002 with offices on K Street and in Jerusalem as a vehicle for ensuring that hawkish, neoconservative talking points about Israel are echoed in the media. Recently, TIP has suggested that talking heads should refer to the effort to end settlements in the West Bank as “ethnic cleansing.” A guide produced by the group instructs its American allies to stoke fear of immigrants and 9/11 when discussing Israel’s “right of return” debate.

“Israel is increasingly becoming a mandatory stop for Republican presidential aspirants,” said Ralph Reed in an interview with Politico. Reed continued: “Evangelicals have always been pro-Israel, but I think Sept. 11 changed security issues into ones that became much more personal for Americans.” He did not disclose his contract with an Israel-based advocacy organization.

Requests by ThinkProgress for comments from The Israel Project and Century Strategies have not been returned.