Overview
For this assignment you are the NSC Staff's Senior Director for the Middle East preparing a briefing memorandum for the President's National Security Advisor's informal breakfast meeting with the Secretaries of State and Defense and the Director of the Central Intelligence Ageny . Unlike at a PC, the National Security Advisor will not have a notetaker. Since you will not be accompanying him to the meeting, it is very important that your memorandum is clear and concise, yet complete.
Review the materials from the module and your lecture notes with an emphasis on the Goldenberg/Koplow/Wittes paper 'A ,New Strategy for the Israel-Palestinian Conflict.'
Write a Briefing Memorandum for the National Security Advisor for an informal discussion among him, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Director of Central Intelligence.
Include:
- Propose at least one and as many as two initial actions the U.S. should take to begin its re-engagement on the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
- Explain why these step(s) would serve U.S. interests.
- Additionally, briefly cover the likely views of other participants in this discussion on these proposed steps.
This memo should be in the format of the model memorandum but without talking points. Since it's not a State Department memorandum, you should drop the State Department Header and substitute 'The National Security Council, The White House, Washington D.C. 20500.' The 'to' line will be 'The National Security Advisor.' The 'from' line will be 'NESA -- Your Name', for example, David T. Johnson. NESA is the Office of Near East and South Asian Affairs on the NSC Staff.
One of the fun -- and sometimes terrifying -- things about working at the NSC is that you have to clear your briefing memos with almost no one. For this memo, you would clear it with the Office of Defense Policy and Arms Control (DP) and the Office of Legal Affairs (L) but probably no one else. You would, however, talk about the issues with your colleagues at State, OSD (the Office of the Secretary of Defense), and perhaps the CIA, since you want to provide the best possible preparation for your boss's discussion.
Very Important: This memo is to be dated March 21, 2021 for a breakfast meeting scheduled to take place on March 23, 2021. You have the benefit of hindsight in your recommendations, but you are making them based on material available in March 2021. This meeting, like the others we are considering, takes place near the beginning of the Administration, when it is setting out policy to guide its work over the long term.