Security Dilemmas

Barack and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Foreign Policy Week

2010-01-25T09:10:00.000-08:00

In a way, President Obama is lucky that last week's special election in Massachusetts went so poorly for his party and domestic agenda; it did succeed in distracting the American public from the disastrous foreign policy week he had. It's not clear which revelation is worse: Obama's admission that his administration had overestimated its ability to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber of Christmas day, was revealing scads of details about his plot and al Qaeda's operations until he was read his Miranda rights, at which point he shut up and demanded a lawyer.

The former revelation came in an interview with the president by Joe Klein in Time on the one-year anniversary of Obama's inauguration. After noting that the peace process hadn't moved along as he had hoped, Obama unleashed this stunner: "Both sides — the Israelis and the Palestinians — have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that." Obama went on to say that "it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high."

Seriously? Does Obama think that every other president has failed to make headway in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for lack of trying? The Israelis and Palestinians have not "found" that their domestic political systems make it difficult for them to make peace; they've known in for quite some time now. In fact, to some degree, they've set their systems up to make peacemaking more difficult (it's an excellent negotiating strategy: I'd love to make a deal, but my domestic situation won't let me, so it's all on you!). But what's even worse is that this seems to have come as a surprise to Obama. Over at his Foreign Policy.com blog, Stephen Walt notes that:

It's not as if the dysfunctional condition of Israeli and Palestinian internal politics was a dark mystery when Obama took office, or when Netanyahu formed the most hard-line government in Israeli history. Which advisors told Obama and Mitchell to proceed as they did, raising expectations sky-high in the Cairo speech, publicly insisting on a settlement freeze, and then engaging in a humiliating retreat? Did they ever ask themselves what they would do if Netanyahu dug in his heels, as anyone with a triple-digit IQ should have expected?

Walt, however, seems to assume that the assumptions did not come from Obama himself and it's not clear why. Even if it was his advisors who made such a bone-headed assumption, it was Obama who picked the advisors. To me, this reveals an incredible amount, in relatively equal parts, of hubris and naivety on the part of the president. It's as if he assumed that his enormous popularity would be enough to break the impasses of one of the world's most intractable conflicts. I can't really think of another explanation for thinking that it would be relatively easy for the US to lean on both sides and produce a breakthrough.

Perhaps worse than Obama's problems in the Middle East was the disastrous handling of the underwear bomber. It's bad enough that the decision was made to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights, but it's not even entirely clear who made that decision. In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Michael Leiter, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center,all admitted that they were not consulted about how to deal with Abdulmutallab. And please note that this isn't necessarily a question of whether terrorists like Abdulmutallab should be dealt with by the civilian or military judicial systems; law enforcement officials are allowed to not read a suspect his Miranda rights if they believe there is an imminent threat to public safety that could be prevented by un-Miranda-ized questioning. And that was undoubtedly the case as al Qaeda has, in the past, used nearly synchronized attacks as a method to increase the impact of its actions (e.g. the joint bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, not to mention the multiple planes used in the 9/11 attacks).

However, by Mirandizing Abdulmutallb, the investigators put an end to any chance of determining of another attack was forthcoming. As the Associated Press notes, "Abdulmutallab spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence.... [He] repeatedly made incriminating statements...talking in detail about what he'd done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen." However, "when [federal agents] read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent."

This was a mistake of colossal proportions, and not just because of the potential intelligence that was lost. The fact that not one of the senior policy officials -- the DNI, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, and as Byron York notes, the Director of the FBI -- shows a serious lack of judgment by both the agents in the field and by the Obama administration that seems to have empowered the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder over the main counterterror organizations. After the hearing in the Senate, all seven Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to President Obama asking whether the administration now has "a protocol or policy in place for handling al Qaeda terrorists captured in the United States."

Together, these two incidents deserve a lot more attention that they were given in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special election. Together, they reveal serious misunderstandings of the nature of foreign policy and international relations. And whether those misunderstandings rest with, as Stephen Walt thinks, Obama's advisors or with the president himself, they are very troubling.

And You Thought Health Care Was Complicated?

2009-12-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

This is a graphic representation of the COIN strategy that the US is planning on implementing in Afghanistan. It was, according to The Huffington Post where I found it, obtained by Richard Engel of NBC.

The Definite, Yet Flexible, Deadline

2009-12-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

In the days since President Obama's announcement of his decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, his intentions in setting a withdrawal date of July 2011 have become a little clearer. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained that while "The July 2011 date is the date on which we begin to transfer authority and responsibility to Afghan security forces," "the pace, the size of the drawdown, is going to be determined in a responsible manner based on the conditions that exist at the time." He further explained that while the withdrawal would begin in July 2011, it would likely take two or three years, and that "there are no deadlines in terms of when our troops will all be out."

Assuming Gates is accurately representing the intentions of President Obama (and there's no reason to think he isn't), it means that the deadline is, as I wrote on Wednesday, much closer to being meaningless than it is counter-productive. Over at Shadow Government, Kori Schake agrees with this assessment, writing that:

There is a precedent we loyal opposition could help steer President Obama toward: the flagrant prevarication committed to by civilian and military leaders in the Clinton administration that American troops deploying to the Balkans in 1995 would be withdrawn in a year. The fiction was necessary to gain Congressional support for an unpopular involvement; 1,500 U.S. troops are still deployed in Kosovo now, 14 years later. There are lots of important differences between the wars in the Balkans and the war in Afghanistan -- not least the magnitude of expense in Afghanistan -- but in the Balkans, Congressional skepticism was overcome as we began to succeed. Let's hope such a calculation underlies the president's artificial timeline in Afghanistan.

But Schake seems to be ignoring a difference that worries me, a difference that could shift a meaningless deadline to a counter-productive deadline. When President Clinton promised that the US troops deployed to the Balkans would begin returning in a year, the deadline fell after the 1996 election; indeed, almost immediately after the election, in which foreign policy and the US troop presence in the Balkans was scarcely discussed, Clinton explicitly broke his promise and decided "in principle" to keep the troops in place until at least mid-1998, 18 months longer than his self-imposed deadline.

But Obama's July 2011 comes before his re-election campaign in 2012. Given that many are predicting relatively high losses for the Democratic Party in 2010 midterm elections, will Obama risk the backlash from breaking his promise? Treating the July 2011 deadline as meaningless risks giving the Republicans an easy issue with which to attack Obama ("he broke his promise") and risks alienating the anti-war wing of his own party, who will likely be dismayed if July 2011 comes and gos with little progress in bringing the boys home. To wit, the New York Times has an article detailing the frustrations of the Democratic Party with Obama so far. The article details "a subtle shift in which Democrats in Congress are becoming less deferential to the White House, making clear that Mr. Obama will not always be able to count on them to fall into line and highlighting how Mr. Obama’s expansive ambitions are running up against political realities."

Will Obama be tempted to enforce his self-imposed deadline to reap political benefit? Hopefully not...but he might. Which is why the deadline was a bad idea in the first place. It's either meaningless or counter-productive; it's just hard to see what Obama gets out of it that he couldn't have accomplished through the creation of benchmarks.

Wars are not fought on time lines; they are fought to achieve strategic goals. And those goals are either worth fighting for or they are not. Obama has stated that the war in Afghanistan is one of "necessity" and is a "vital national interest." The war should then be fought to achieve the strategic goals that the commander-in-chief establishes. It is, of course, reasonable to ask at certain points in time whether the goals are being achieved and whether the cost is justified. But it is dangerous to create an arbitrary deadline as Obama has done here.

The Afghan Deadline

2009-12-02T14:57:00.001-08:00

President Obama did, in my analysis, the right thing by deciding to send approximately 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, and to request 5,000 more troops from NATO (although it's entirely unclear if NATO can or will come up with the requested troops), in order to provide General Stanley McChrystal with the soldiers he believes he needs to implement a counter-insurgency strategy across the country. All in all, it was a good speech, in which Obama clearly laid out the strategic rationale for sending the troops. Even more importantly, he clearly explained the strategy which those troops will help implement:

First, we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban's momentum and increase Afghanistan's capacity over the next 18 months.
The 30,000 additional troops that I'm announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest possible pace -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They'll increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.

Because this is an international effort, I've asked that our commitment be joined by contributions from our allies. Some have already provided additional troops, and we're confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead. Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. And now, we must come together to end this war successfully. For what's at stake is not simply a test of NATO's credibility -- what's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world.

But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We'll continue to advise and assist Afghanistan's security forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul. But it will be clear to the Afghan government -- and, more importantly, to the Afghan people -- that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.

Second, we will work with our partners, the United Nations, and the Afghan people to pursue a more effective civilian strategy, so that the government can take advantage of improved security.

This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over. President Karzai's inauguration speech sent the right message about moving in a new direction. And going forward, we will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance. We'll support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable. And we will also focus our assistance in areas -- such as agriculture -- that can make an immediate impact in the lives of the Afghan people.

The people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They've been confronted with occupation -- by the Soviet Union, and then by foreign al Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes. So tonight, I want the Afghan people to understand -- America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering. We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect -- to isolate those who destroy; to strengthen those who build; to hasten the day when our troops will leave; and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron.

Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.

We're in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That's why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.

In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who've argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear. America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan's democracy and development. We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan's security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.

But one part puzzles me: the declaration that troops will begin withdrawing in July 2011. This is completely at odds with the rationale provided in the speech. If Obama believes, as he said, that "it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan" then how can he set a vague, undefined, and largely arbitrary deadline of 18 months for the mission?

I think there are two possible explanations and they're not mutually exclusive. First, that Obama is sending a message to the left-wing of the Democratic Party that he does not envision a long-term open-ended military presence in Afghanistan. And second, that Obama is sending a message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the US presence in his country will not be indefinite, and thus he needs to ensure that the Afghan government and armed forces will be up to the task of providing security, services, and stability when the US forces leave. Obama himself rejected the absence of a deadline, saying "[such an absence] sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."

Both of these may be good and necessary messages. But the setting of the deadline is meaningless at best, and counterproductive at worst. The deadline might be meaningless because Obama didn't say anything more than "these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." As Stephen Biddle commented in a Council on Foreign Relations interview, "[the Obama administration has] deliberately not said when the withdrawal will end, or how deep it will go, or how fast it will proceed. So all they're actually saying in concrete terms is in August 2011 there will be at least one fewer American soldier in Afghanistan than there was in June 2011." If that's the case, the deadline is truly meaningless, and Obama will have to deal with the backlash of his decision in the run-up to the 2012 election.

But the deadline might be counter-productive, especially as it relates to the mission at hand. If Obama means the deadline seriously, what happens if, come July 2011, there is good, solid progress but the mission is far from over? It's one thing to refuse to commit the US to an open-ended, indefinite combat mission with no clear exit strategy; it's another thing entirely to undermine a successful mission in progress by arbitrarily adhering to a withdrawal date picked a year-and-a-half earlier. The New York Times is already reporting that the deadline is causing concerns in Afghanistan:

[the Afghan foreign minister, Rangin Dadfar Spanta] admitted that the 18-month timeline for the start of a transition to Afghan authority had served something of a shock therapy to the Afghan government.
“Can we do it?” he said. “That is the main question. This is not done in a moment, it is a process. They have to have strategic patience with us.”
In a clear sign of his government’s uneasiness at the flagging American enthusiasm for the Afghan war, Mr. Spanta said he had just presented a proposal to Mr. Karzai to work out a new strategic partnership with the United States to secure the kind of predictable, long-term assistance that close American allies Israel and Egypt enjoy.
All parties involved agreed that a great deal of the job ahead was about managing perceptions.
“We have to manage the public,” said a senior Afghan government aide, speaking anonymously so he could talk more freely.
President Obama was very much speaking to the American public in his speech, he said. American military officials had assured them that the 18-month timeline was more for the American public opinion than any unmovable deadline for the Afghans.

It would seem to have been much wiser for Obama to discuss clear and unambiguous metrics for judging the progress of the COIN surge -- to lay out exactly what the US expects to see happen, particularly on the two most important issues: the corruption and efficacy of the Afghan government and the training of effective Afghani military and police forces. If, after a reasonable time period following the surge (say, 18 months?), progress on the metrics was not acceptable, withdrawal of US troops would commence. If, however, progress was acceptable, and the job was not yet finished, it would then make sense to leave the troops in place to see the job through to the end. This strategy is essentially the one eventually employed in Iraq and it worked well there, encouraging action from the Iraqi government while making it clear that progress was essential to the continued US presence.

Rather than setting an either meaningless or counter-productive withdrawal date, President Obama should have made it clear that the US troop presence was entirely dependent on the Afghan government meeting clear benchmarks on ending corruption, providing basic services, and the creation of effective national armed forces. Given the vague and undefined deadline Obama set out, it's not impossible that he will ultimately employ such a tactic, which would not only be more reassuring to the US's Afghan and NATO partners, but also make clear what is expected of those partners. Let's hope the speech is followed by benchmarks.

UPDATE:

From an Associated Press article reporting on the congressional reaction to President Obama's announcement:

[US Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates suggested the July 2011 withdrawal date was both firm and flexible, frustrating lawmakers who said that wasn't possible.

When pressed, Gates said the beginning of drawing down troops would not necessarily be based on conditions in Afghanistan and that the president was committed to begin pulling at least some troops out by the target date.

At the same time, the president will have the authority to change gears after the Defense Department conducts a formal assessment in December 2010.

Ah...that clears everything up.

Or Else What?

2009-11-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

In the wake of a demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop work on its recently-revealed uranium enrichment plant, Iran has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to begin construction on ten more nuclear enrichment facilities. And while Iran may not have the capability or will to carry out either threat, the threats in and of themselves highlight the problem the international community faces in dealing with a regime like Iran: How does the international community deal with such intransigence? Iran is clearly in violation of international law as well as of international opinion and sentiment. However, all of the promised inducements, compromises, and incentives, including the recent offer to enrich Iran's uranium outside of Iran to ensure it could not be used for a weapon, have been rejected. Which leaves the international community, the UN, and the US back where it has been for the past several years: Relying on the old mantra of Comply with international law or else.

Or else what?

It's the "what" that is so important here, and that is do difficult for the international community to define. The UN has demonstrated time and time again that it can, occasionally, muster the will to impose sanctions on the most flagrant violators of international law. But, rarely does it know what to do when sanctions fail to yield results.

This is the problem today, just as it was the problem in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. What is the "what"? What will happen to a state that refuses to comply? Even when the Security Council members can overcome their own narrowly-defined national interests to reach a consensus, that's usually as far as they will go. So while Russia and China have been willing to rebuke Iran for its violations of Iran's obligations under the NPT, neither has been willing to discuss, let alone implement, any punishments intended to force compliance. President Obama has not shown a willingness to meld negotiations with punishment, leaving them as separate outcomes, making it possible for the avoidance of even the consideration serious punishment so long as negotiations are proceeding. So when Iran is challenged with a "comply or else" threat, the "or else" is left undefined. Iran doesn't know what will happen, nor does the US, the UN or anyone else.

If the US and the international community are serious in warning that they are "not going to just wait indefinitely and allow for the development of a nuclear weapon [and] the breach of international treaties" (please note that I do not necessarily agree with this position) then the negotiations and the threats need to be combined. The US needs to work to build a consensus with its international partners on what actions are to be demanded of Iran and what consequences will follow if Iran does not comply.

The stakes get higher in Iran day by day as Iran refuses to cooperate with the IAEA. The US needs to act quickly; once Iran develops a nuclear weapon, the whole equation changes.

More Thoughts on the Trial of KSM

2009-11-20T09:52:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court in New York City. While Holder did admit that "we are at war" with al Qaeda, the civilian court system was the best venue to try KSM: “We need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is ready, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.”

But there are still several problems with this decision that bother me, and make me wonder why the Obama administration made this decision.

First, in response to stated worries by the senators (Holder was testifying about the decision before the Senate Judiciary Committee) about the chance that KSM would not be found guilty, Holder responded “Failure is not an option.” Now, it's likely that Holder was speaking rhetorically here and that he didn't actually mean that it is impossible for KSM to get off on the charges. But the remark certainly implies that the civilian trial has been predetermined, or at least will be little more than a show trial. If the decision to shift trial venues was primarily intended to erase the bad taste remaining from the Bush administration's efforts to evade the law and the taint of Guantanamo, anything that calls into question the fairness of the civil trial KSM is about to undergo undermines that intent. When the Attorney General says failure is not an option, it certainly raises questions as to whether KSM can, in fact, receive a fair trial. Is it possible to find American citizens, and more specifically New Yorkers, who won't have prejudged the case and KSM's guilt? Furthermore, the New York Times reports that "other Justice Department officials have said that even if Mr. Mohammed is acquitted, the Obama administration will keep him locked up forever as a 'combatant' under the laws of war." How will that look? How will the international community respond if KSM is acquitted under our domestic laws and then kept indefinitely in military custody? Won't that simply reinforce the perception of injustice?

Second, in an excellent piece over at Slate, David Feige warns that, far from upholding the American principal of law and order, this trial may very well undermine our legal system by "generate a tragic flood of bad law, rendering the defense team's valiant service not merely unsuccessful but actually hostile to the interests of all their other clients." According to Feige, because "No jury on this continent is going to acquit their client, the government is certain to insist on the death penalty, and KSM will almost certainly try to put the government on trial," KSM's defense lawyers will be forced to rely on two strategies: 1) An argument that persuasive evidence of torture should result in the suppression of a great deal of evidence; and 2) to use the discovery process to uncover facts that embarrass or discomfit the government. Feige points out how this strategy forced the US government to back away from its desired three life sentences for "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh and settle for 20 years in prison in exchange for Lindh agreeing to a gag order and dropping his claims of torture and mistreatment. This time, according to Feige:

They'll allege a violation of KSM's right to a speedy trial, claiming that the years he spent in CIA detention and Gitmo violated this constitutional right. They'll seek suppression of KSM's statements, arguing (persuasively) that the torture he endured—sleep deprivation, noise, cold, physical abuse, and, of course, 183 water-boarding sessions—make his statements involuntary. They will insist that everything stemming from those statements must be suppressed, under the Fourth Amendment, as the fruit of the wildly poisonous tree. They will demand the names of operatives and interrogators, using KSM's right to confront the witnesses against him to box the government into revealing things it would prefer to keep secret—the identities of confidential informants, the locations of secret safe houses, the names of other inmates and detainees who provided information about him, and a thousand other clever things that should make the government squirm. The defense will attack the CIA, FBI, and NSA, demanding information about wiretapping and signal intelligence and sources and methods. They'll move to dismiss the case because there is simply no venue in the United States in which KSM can get a fair trial.

...

The judicial refusal to consider KSM's years of quasi-legal military detention as a violation of his right to a speedy trial will erode that already crippled constitutional concept. The denial of the venue motion will raise the bar even higher for defendants looking to escape from damning pretrial publicity. Ever deferential to the trial court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will affirm dozens of decisions that redact and restrict the disclosure of secret documents, prompting the government to be ever more expansive in invoking claims of national security and emboldening other judges to withhold critical evidence from future defendants. Finally, the twisted logic required to disentangle KSM's initial torture from his subsequent "clean team" statements will provide a blueprint for the government, giving them the prize they've been after all this time—a legal way both to torture and to prosecute.

By prosecuting KSM in civilian courts, the rule of law itself may very well be damaged. Take the question of torture. Even if a court is willing to determine that waterboarding is not torture but a legitimate coercive interrogation technique, the government's own memoranda make it clear that KSM was waterboarded in violation of the rules established to ensure that the use of waterboarding would not constitute torture. According to the legal opinion written by Steven Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice (p.15):

The waterboard may be authorized for, at most, one 30 day period, during which the technique can actually applied on no more than five days...Further, there can be no more than two sessions in any 24-hour period. Each session--the time during which the detainee is strapped to the waterboard--lasts no more than two hours. There may be at most six applications of water lasting 10 seconds or longer during any session, and water may be applied for a total of no more than 12 minutes during any 24-hour period.

But, on p. 37, we are informed that the waterboard was used "183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed)." As I wrote on April 20, if you "do the math on the instructions from p. 15, the rules limit the use of the waterboard to no more than 60 times per month (five days per month, two sessions per day, six applications of water during each session; 5x2x6=60). And yet, KSM was waterboarded 183 times." There is seemingly no question that the government broke its own rules on the waterboard with KSM and that breaking those rules almost certainly means that KSM was tortured, even if the use of the waterboard, in and of itself, does not equate to torture. What will a trial judge and a jury do with this information? What happens when KSM's defense attorneys claim that everything KSM admitted was tainted by the abusive and wildly excessive torture he suffered? As Feige points out, the evidence could be dismissed, raising the likelihood that KSM could be acquitted. Or, the claim will be ignored or, if the government has enough evidence to convict KSM even if all torture-tainted evidence is throw out, rendered irrelevant. Either way, this has the potential to create extremely dangerous precedents and procedures within the US legal system.

To me, this whole thing seems like a no-win situation. If KSM is convicted, it won't put to rest any doubts about the fairness of the American legal system and its application in the war on terror. And if by some unforeseeable development he's acquitted, it's hard to imagine a bigger transgression against justice.

The Trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed

2009-11-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

Last week, the Obama administration annouced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, along with four other suspected members of al Qaeda will be transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to New York City to face trial in civilian court. Interestingly, however, Obama has not decided to use the civilian courts for all of the Guantanamo detainees; five more face trial by military commission, largely because their crimes were more directly pursuant to military operations:

Holder also announced that five other detainees held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be sent to military commissions for trial. They were identified as Omar Khadr, Mohammed Kamin, Ibrahim al Qosi, Noor Uthman Muhammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Al-Nashiri is an accused mastermind of the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole; Khadr is a Canadian charged with the 2002 murder of a U.S. military officer in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured in July 2002.

Additionally, several more will not be tried at all; rather, they will continue to be held indefinitely without charge or trial.

This decision has, of course, outraged many who believe that the decision to try KSM in civilian court is dangerous. John Yoo, the architect of many of the most controversial Bush-era legal decisions, argues in the Wall Street Journal:

Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress.
Now, however, KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens—including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it.

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.

This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "blind Sheikh"), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.

In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.

Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.

Even more harmful to our national security will be the effect a civilian trial of KSM will have on the future conduct of intelligence officers and military personnel. Will they have to read al Qaeda terrorists their Miranda rights? Will they have to secure the "crime scene" under battlefield conditions? Will they have to take statements from nearby "witnesses"? Will they have to gather evidence and secure its chain of custody for transport all the way back to New York? All of this while intelligence officers and soldiers operate in a war zone, trying to stay alive, and working to complete their mission and get out without casualties.
...
For a preview of the KSM trial, look at what happened in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker who was arrested in the U.S. just before 9/11. His trial never made it to a jury. Moussaoui's lawyers tied the court up in knots.

All they had to do was demand that the government hand over all its intelligence on him. The case became a four-year circus, giving Moussaoui a platform to air his anti-American tirades. The only reason the trial ended was because, at the last minute, Moussaoui decided to plead guilty. That plea relieved the government of the choice between allowing a fishing expedition into its intelligence files or dismissing the charges.

In response to Yoo and others who have decried Obama's decision, Tommy Crocker of the University of South Carolina's Law School, guest-blogging over Opinio Juris, writes:

Mr. Yoo [does not make] this clear, but [he] seems to rely on a judgment about the nature of the acts perpetrated by terrorists. Are some acts so heinous that by their very nature, they morally “deserve” to be punished by less robust rights-protecting procedures? I can see that for pragmatic purposes, different criminal acts may lead to differing needs to seek punishment in ad hoc tribunals or military commissions which may afford alternative procedures. But to my knowledge special tribunals do not establish differing degrees of rights-protections based on moral judgments about the nature of the underlying criminal acts over which they sit in judgment. Ordinarily, questions of moral desert occur both before and after a trial—in judgments about which acts to criminalize and how severe to punish them—not in decisions about trial procedure itself, nor in decisions about who receives basic human rights protections. Thus, the underlying view is not only that we are engaged in a “new kind of war” facing a new kind of enemy whose very warlike actions are illegal, but those actions are of a kind morally deserving of a lesser legal process.
I think this view mistaken. I also see no reason to think that precluding this type of moral judgment harms national security—quite the opposite. Procedural protections are not, nor should they be, grounded in prior judgments of moral desert. To go down this path is to go down the path of varying human rights protections based on moral judgments about who deserves them. On this score, we make no further distinctions than to say that if anyone deserves them, we all do.

Not surprisingly, I think both of these guys are wrong. Crocker's argument seems a bit bizarre to me. I don't see why or how a moral judgment needs to be part of the equation here. Yoo isn't arguing that members of al Qaeda are inhuman and therefore undeserving of rights and due process; rather, he's arguing that the US is involved in a war with al Qaeda and that different legal codes apply in time of war. People who commit war crimes are not tried in civilian courts; they are tried by military commissions with different legal rights than civilians and under the laws of war which are different than civilian laws. One can argue about whether terrorism of the kind practiced by al Qaeda should be dealt with in a military framework, but Crocker seems to dismiss this argument entirely.

The nature of al Qaeda and its missions do, in my opinion, lend themselves to the military model rather than a civilian legalistic frame. The inter- and trans-national nature of the organization, its efforts to kill large numbers of non-combatants, its frequent targeting of military assets and the difficulties posed by the standard law enforcement models (e.g. its emphasis on procedural justice and ex post, rather than ex ante, actions) are not well suited for a civilian/traditional law enforcement response. That's not to say that law enforcement plays no role, or that the military option is always the proper one. But the US is clearly involved in military operations against al Qaeda and mass terrorism of the kind perpetrated by al Qaeda is much closer to a war crime than it is to murder.

That said, I think Yoo's argument is wrong as well. Well, not so much wrong as problematic. The problem is the poor decisions the Bush administration made in the early days of the war on terror regarding the detainees; decisions in which Yoo was involved as he makes abundantly clear in his memoir War By Other Means: An Insider's Accout of the War on Terror.

As suspected members of al Qaeda began to trickle into Guantanamo Bay (along with hundreds of innocent people handed over to US forces by opportunistic Afghani militants seeking reward money) the Bush administration needed to decide what laws would apply to these people. The choices were civilian law or military law. The Bush administration chose neither.

The selection of Guantanamo Bay as the detention facility was explicitly intended to place the detainees beyond the reach of US civilian courts and laws. Fine. But no one is outside of all law. If individuals seized by US military forces are not to be granted the rights and protections of US civilian law then they must be granted the rights and protections of the laws of war, as embodied in the Geneva Conventions. But the Bush administration sought to deny KSM and his colleagues even these rights.

Following the Geneva Conventions would not have guaranteed KSM protections as a prisoner of war. The Geneva Conventions make it clear that al Qaeda was fighting in violations of the laws of war, and thus not due the protection of POW status and eligible for trial for their actions. All that was needed was an Article 5 hearing to determine status; not guilt, just status. Each detainee needed to be given the opportunity to claim before a competent panel that he was not a member of al Qaeda or that he was fighting in accordance with the laws of war. Once the determination was made that the detainee was a member of al Qaeda and was violating the laws of war, the detainee could be denied POW status and subject to trial by a military commission (Common Article 3 of the Conventions protects the rights of non-POWs by guaranteeing them fair trials).

However, Yoo and the Bush administration sought to have it both ways. They did not want US law to apply, nor did they want the Geneva Conventions to apply. And this kicked off a series of court cases between detainees challenging their status and the administration. If the administration had simply granted KSM and his fellow al Qaeda suspects an Article 5 hearing to determine their status as illegal combatants under the laws of war, we most likely wouldn't be in the mess we're in today. The US would have then been perfectly within its rights under the laws of war to either hold the detainees indefinitely until the end of hostilities or to try them under military commissions. Of course, the argument could still be made that the laws of war were not the appropriate laws to be used. But as it seems that part of Obama's decision to move KSM into the civilian judicial system is to erase the doubts and questions raised by the Bush administration's attempts to escape the law perhaps Obama would have been happy to try KSM under military law as he is doing with Omar Khadr, Mohammed Kamin, Ibrahim al Qosi, Noor Uthman Muhammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In fact, the whole thing might be over by now, as KSM was prepared to plead guilty to a military tribunal late last year.

I certainly understand Obama's desire to make amends for the legal mistakes of the Bush administration, but moving KSM to New York is a risky move. Despite Obama's predictions that KSM will be found guilty and put to death, there most certainly is a risk that KSM will not be given the death penalty (as occurred in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, when one juror balked at handing down a death sentence) or that he won't be found guilty at all for a number of procedural reasons. And Yoo's warnings about the threats to intelligence and counter-terror operations should not be taken lightly either. Military commissions can be both fair and efficient; in fact, in this case I'd assume that KSM would get a more fair trial in a military tribunal than before a panel of American citizens. But the die has been cast; let's hope KSM gets what is coming to him.

Abbas and Israel

2009-11-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he does not plan to run for re-election in the upcoming Palestinian elections in January. According to the Associated Press, "Abbas says the stalemate in peace negotiations with Israel prompted his decision not to run again. He charged the U.S. with backtracking on its Mideast policy and refusing to press Israel to freeze construction in its West Bank settlements." Today, at a ceremony honoring former PLO Chairman and the first head of the Palestinian Authority Yasir Arafat, Abbas called on Hamas to honor the Egyptian-broked reconciliation deal designed to ease tensions between the Islamic organization based in Gaza and the West Bank-center, and more moderate, PA.

Abbas's resignation has raised serious concerns over the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (if one can be said to still exist) as well as the future of any moderate Palestinian political faction willing to talk and negotiate with Israel. If the PA does, indeed, collapse, Hamas will certainly benefit the most from being able to point the fruitlessness and foolishness of trusting in talks with Israel and the US to bring about an independent Palestinian homeland.

The problem, as Abbas apparently sees it, is Israel's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith towards a Palestinian state along the lines set out by the US and its international partners (the EU, the UN, and Russia), coupled with the American refusal to pressure Israel to make any real progress (exemplified by President Obama's caving in on the settlement freeze issue). Between the ridiculous Israeli electoral system that inevitably produces weak governments beholden to small extreme parties and the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has certainly seemed to lose interest in the peace process, and has repeatedly rebuffed requests to make any kind of commitment to an eventual independent Palestinian state (Netanyahu claims he favors "negotiations without preconditions" which forbids him from discussing any eventual end-game) or offer any kind of serious freeze on the building and expansion of West Bank settlements. The latter is perhaps the most important issue to the PA and Abbas, as the Palestinians rightly fear that continued and unchecked settlement expansion threatens to create a fait accompli on the ground that will determine the boundaries of any Palestinian-governed lands, sovereign or not, outside of the negotiated process. Palestinians are also worried that Netanhayu is, in essence, trying to bribe the West Bankers, hoping that allowing economic development in the occupied territory will quiet cries for independence.

Certainly, economic conditions have improved recently in the West Bank, and concurrently (although not necessarily causally) the West Bank has for the last years been relatively quiet. It's certainly possible that this is indeed Netanyahu's strategy; it's also possible that this is simply the result of Israel's domestic political system that is more likely to produce paralysis than results. It's also entirely possible that Abbas's threat of retirement is a political ploy, intended to coax more concessions from an Israel scared of an Abbas-less Palestinian political apparatus.

Either way, however, it's a bad strategy for Israel to play such a dangerous game of chicken. Israel has no choice, ultimately, but to move towards an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank (most likely in Gaza too, but that's a different story). Simple demographics about the growth rate of the Palestinians in the West Bank make it inevitable that Israel will become, very soon, an apartheid-type regime, with a minority population of Israelis governing and oppressing a majority population of Palestinians (I know the analogy isn't perfect as the West Bank is an occupied territory and not part of Israel proper, but the problem is basically the same). Furthermore, the longer the Palestinians feel the peace process isn't moving forward, the weaker the moderate PA-based wing will become, and the stronger and better Hamas looks as a representative of the Palestinians. Armed struggle will begin to look a more attractive option; it's certainly not out of the question that the West Bank could initiate a third intifada, although the security wall along the Green Wall and the removal of many of the deepest settlements will certainly blunt the impact of any such uprising.

Israel also suffers on the international stage for its refusal to make any meaningful progress. While Israel often claims, with much merit, that the international community is massively biased against it, the unjust occupation and continued settlement of the West Bank does nothing to help Israel in the international court of opinion. And Israel does, despite its claims to the contrary, need the international community. Just last week, Israel captured a ship it claimed was carrying from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon a supply of weapons large enough for a month's worth of military operations. In a speech discussing the seizure, Netanyahu argued that "[the smuggling] is a war crime that the U.N. Security Council should have a special meeting over. A major component of this shipment were rockets whose only goal was to hit civilians and kill as many civilians as possible — women, children, old people." That may be true -- in fact, it most likely is true -- but given Israel's repeated refusal to comply with international demands to freeze settlement expansion and enter into serious negotiations about the future of a Palestinian state, not to mention Israel's refusal to investigate allegations of war crimes in January's invasion of Gaza (all states, especially democratic ones, have an obligation to fight their battles in a moral and legal manner; Israel should, as it has in the past, willingly investigate the behavior of its troops and commanders, not because the UN demands it, but because liberal democracies hold themselves to higher standards), the international community isn't likely to spend much time looking into Israel's claims.

Israel's national interest demands that it divest itself from the occupation of the Palestinians. It no longer needs the West Bank as a defensive buffer against Jordan; nor, given the security fence being built and its overwhelming military dominance, does it have much to fear about a terrorist or military threat from the West Bank itself. But by seriously committing itself to negotiations, including an meaningful ex ante freeze on settlement building and expansion, Israel can gain several things: It can begin to avert the impending racist crisis; it can begin to capitalize on the fears of its Arab neighbors over Iran; it can begin to transform international public opinion; and it can protect its relationship with the United States.

Even if Abbas's threat is just a negotiating ploy, Israel cannot allow the PA to collapse. And preventing that collapse may require that Israel stop dithering, and start taking seriously the inevitable.

A Decision on Afghanistan?

2009-11-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

CBS News is reporting that President Obama has decided to provide General Stanley McChrystal with most, if not all, of the 40,000 troops the general requested to wage a counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign in Afghanistan against the forces of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

According to the report:

The buildup would be expected to last about four years, until McChrystal completes his plan for doubling the size of the Afghan army and police force.

With 68,000 Americans already there, the Afghan surge would mean there would be 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of the president's first term.

However, a header on the article reads as follows:

Editor's note, 9:57 p.m. EDT: The White House has issued the following response to this story, attributed to White House National Security Advisor James Jones:

"Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false. He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources."

As I've argued several times, I believe this is the right move. Afghanistan is too important for US strategy and especially for Pakistan to ignore the resurgence of the Taliban. More on this as it develops.

Space Elevator Success?

2009-11-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

One more on this...

Success in 'space elevator' competition

By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer John Antczak, Associated Press Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – A robot powered by a ground-based laser beam climbed a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday to qualify for prize money in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.

The highly technical contest brought teams from Missouri, Alaska and Seattle to Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert, most familiar to the public as a space shuttle landing site.

The contest requires their machines to climb 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.

LaserMotive's vehicle zipped up to the top in just over four minutes and immediately repeated the feat, qualifying for at least a $900,000 second-place prize.

The device, a square of photo voltaic panels about 2 feet by 2 feet and topped by a motor structure and thin triangle frame, had failed to respond to the laser three times before it was lowered, inspected and then hoisted back up by the helicopter for the successful tries.

Earlier out on the lakebed, team member Nick Burrows had pointed out how it grips the cable with modified skateboard wheels and the laser is aimed with an X Box game controller.

It had never climbed higher than 80 feet previously, he said.

Update on the Space Elevator

2009-11-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

Laser-powered elevator to space hits some snags

By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer - Wed Nov 4, 2009 4:23PM EST

A laser-powered robot failed to complete its climb up a long cable dangling from a helicopter Wednesday in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the science fiction concept of space elevators.

The highly technical contest brought teams from Missouri, Alaska and Seattle to Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert, most familiar to the public as a space shuttle landing site.

The contest requires their machines to climb 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high.

The Kansas City, Mo., Space Pirates team was first off the ground after hours of testing the cable system, refueling the helicopter and waiting to fire up the laser so it doesn't interfere with satellites.

Its climber, a flat machine several feet square, initially failed to respond to laser power and was lowered, examined and sent back up. On the second try it began moving and then stopped.

On the third try it began moving steadily, but then trouble developed as the laser could not stay locked on the machine. It failed to climb all the way up before the laser had to be shut off to protect satellites, said Ted Semons of the sponsoring Spaceward Foundation. The team was expected to try again Friday.

Funded by a NASA program to explore bold technology, the contest is intended to encourage development of a theory that originated in the 1960s and was popularized by Arthur C. Clarke's 1979 novel "The Fountains of Paradise."

Space elevators are envisioned as a way to reach space without the risk and expense of rockets.

Instead, electrically powered vehicles would run up and down a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles up to a mass in geosynchronous orbit — the kind of orbit communications satellites are placed in to stay over a fixed spot on the Earth.

Electricity would be supplied through a concept known as "power beaming," ground-based lasers pointing up to photo voltaic cells on the bottom of the climbing vehicle — something like an upside-down solar power system.

The space elevator competition has not produced a winner in its previous three years, but has become increasingly difficult.

Semons said the competing machines all use wheels to grip the cable. Two use modified inline-skate wheels and one uses steel wheels.

The vehicles must climb at an average speed of 16.4 feet (5 meters) per second, or about 11 miles (18 kilometers) per hour, to qualify for the top prize. A lesser prize is available for vehicles that climb at 2 meters per second.

The rules allow one team to collect all $2 million or for sums to be shared among all three teams depending on their achievements.

The other teams scheduled to compete later Wednesday were the University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team, known as USST, and LaserMotive of Seattle.

The teams were scheduled to make attempts Wednesday and Thursday. Additional attempts were possible Friday, Semons said.

Space Elevators?

2009-11-04T11:04:00.001-08:00

This may not have anything to do with international security or politics, but it's too cool not to post!

Elevator to space? They're really trying
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -
Rocketing into space? Some think an elevator might be the way to go.

That's the future goal of this week's $2 million Space Elevator Games in the Mojave Desert.

In a major test of the concept, robotic machines powered by laser beams will try to climb a cable suspended from a helicopter hovering more than a half-mile (one kilometer) high.

Three teams have qualified to participate in the event on the dry lakebed near NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards. Attempts were expected from early Wednesday through Thursday.

Funded by a space agency program to explore bold technology, the contest is a step toward bringing the idea of a space elevator out of the realm of science fiction and into reality.

Theorized in the 1960s and then popularized by Arthur C. Clarke's 1979 novel "The Fountains of Paradise," space elevators are envisioned as a way to gain access to space without the risk and expense of rockets.

Instead, electrically powered vehicles would run up and down a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles up to a mass in geosynchronous orbit — the kind of orbit communications satellites are placed in to stay over a fixed spot on the Earth.

Electricity would be supplied through a concept known as "power beaming," ground-based lasers pointing up to photo voltaic cells on the bottom of the climbing vehicle — something like an upside-down solar power system.

The space elevator competition has not produced a winner in its previous three years, but has become increasingly difficult.

The vehicles must climb a cable six-tenths of a mile into the sky and move at an average speed of 16.4 feet (five meters) per second.

The competition is sponsored by the nonprofit Spaceward Foundation with support from NASA's Centennial Challenges program.

John Kerry on Afghanistan

2009-10-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

This morning, I participated in a tele-conference sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations with Senator John Kerry (D-MA). Senator Kerry, who is the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was speaking on prospects for US policy and strategy in Afghanistan, from where Kerry recently returned from a fact-finding trip. Kerry's visit was designed, among other things, to obtain Afghan President Hamid Karzai's acceptance of a run-off vote in the disputed presidential elections in Afghanistan, which Kerry succeeded in getting.

[The transcript of Sen. Kerry's remarks are available here.]

Kerry began by stating that the debate over the proposal by General Stanley McChrystal that a minimum of 40,000 more US troops are necessary to stave off defeat is not the proper topic for policy discussion. Rather, the focus needs to be on developing a comprehensive strategy that melds military strategy with the necessary improvements in the Afghan government and society.

Kerry also stated that the US does have vital national security interests at stake in Afghanistan. Even though most of al Qaeda has been routed from Afghanistan and has moved into Pakistan, the porous border between the two means that if the US withdraws or significantly draws down its operations in Afghanistan, al Qaeda would likely move back into Afghanistan. It is thus imperative, he argued, to prevent the Taliban from re-establishing the kind of sanctuary it was able to provide prior to 9/11. Instability in Afghanistan leads to and contributes to instability in Pakistan.

Furthermore, Kerry warned that a radical departure from the current strategy would threaten US credibility around the world. First, Islamist insurgents would learn that the US can be defeated and lacks the political will to see a conflict through to its end. Second, a US withdrawal would send bad messages to US allies around the world, who look to the US as the leader of, as he called it, the global counter-insurgency movement.

So, the question that needs to be at the forefront of any policy discussion, as Kerry sees it, is what realistic goals can the US establish that can be met and will contribute to success? That in turn raises the question: How should success be defined? For Kerry, success will occur when the US has sufficiently empowered the Afghani government to the point where it can assume responsibility for domestic security and when the Afghan state can be sufficiently stable and secure so as to not be controlled by the Taliban or al Qaeda. This definition is important because it does not require that Afghanistan become a "flawless democracy," nor does it require that the US or the Afghan regime defeat the Taliban. Rather, Kerry was emphatic that the end is "good-enough" governance" which in turn requires capable Afghan security forces and a legitimate, effective civilian government.

After defining "success" Kerry turned to actual policy. He began by rejecting the strategy championed by Vice President Biden of drawing down US troops to shift to a highly limited strategy of targeting al Qaeda as an insufficient footprint to stabilize Afghanistan and protect Pakistan. Furthermore, such a policy could lead to a civil war, which would in turn directly threaten Pakistan. However, he also rejected (noting that this is not the strategy recommended by McChrystal) a broader country-wide counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy. The US does not have the capability for such a strategy (Kerry cited a number of 400,000 troops that would be needed); additionally, a broad strategy isn't needed, as the resurgent Taliban isn't active in the entire country, as it largely confined to the Pashtun-dominant regions. Fortunately, Kerry argued, such a broad COIN strategy is not needed. Rather, the US should focus its military COIN strategy on the population centers.

So. Kerry said more troops are needed. But, before the troops can be delivered, several questions need to be asked. 1) Are there enough reliable Afghani forces to partner with US troops and that can eventually assume the primary responsibility for domestic security ? 2) Are there local leaders with whom the US can partner? 3) Is the civilian government ready to support the military mission and to provide the domestic services needed by the civilian populations?

Kerry argued that while the answer to #2 is yes, the answer to #s 1 and 3 is "not yet". Kerry put out a number of 92,000 being the number of Afghan police and security forces currently capable of engaging in operations, although he noted that the real number is probably closer to 50,000, and that 3-4 times that many are required. But the real problem that worries Kerry is #3. The real problem in Afghanistan, as Kerry sees it, is inattention to the basic needs of the Afghani citizens who need basic services -- access to water, jobs, law, etc. -- to live their lives. If the government can't or won't provide these services, the average Afghani will turn to support anyone who can, and that's where the Taliban steps in. Kerry cited the recent revelation that the Taliban have created ombudsmen to hear complaints about their rule, while the government is widely mistrusted.

The key to Afghanistan is, Kerry argued, whether the Afghan government can succeed in providing these basic services and be seen as legitimate and effective. When and where the government succeeds, the Taliban weakens. Kerry claimed that there are only approximately 3,000 "hard-core" (i.e. ideologically committed) Taliban members, while the rest are either common criminals looking to profit, those opposed to the US presence, or those who simply believe that the Taliban offer a better future than does the current government. The right combination of effective governance, money, diplomacy, and promise of reintegration into society can, Kerry believes, siphon off many of these pragmatic Taliban members leaving the core isolated and weakened.

The key to Afghanistan, Kerry concluded, is whether the US and any future troop increase helps the Afghan government provide basic services and security.

Senator Kerry then took several questions from the press (the tele-conference was a press conference) one of which which I'll re-create here to the best of my ability.

A reporter from the Washington Times asked whether Kerry's preferred strategy -- implementing COIN in the population centers -- is any different from the policy implemented in the Bush administration. Kerry answered that the emphasis on effective and legitimate governance would, if done properly, make all the difference. Focusing on good-enough governance at the national and regional levels is the key to success, not increasing troops or even clearing the country-side of Taliban. The emphasis under Bush, Kerry claimed, was clear and hold, but without enough of a troop presence to hold. The proper strategy, Kerry said, is clear, hold, build (as in build civil society and services) and transfer (as in transfer responsibility for security to the Afghan government).

I am right on board with Senator Kerry's assessment. Increasing troop levels to be able to implement a proper COIN strategy is key, but it is matched in importance by the need to develop a credible and effective partner with the civilian Afghani government. These two elements must come hand in hand in order for anything even close to success to be a possibility. For Kerry, the solution is to steadily increase troop levels (Kerry stated that the US can effectively deploy 1 brigade to Afghanistan every 3 months) while concurrently judging the improvements in civilian benchmarks (provisions of services, stamping out corruption, training effective Afghan soldiers and police). The Biden-supported alternative is far too risky, not only to Afghanistan but to Pakistan. Given that a complete withdrawal is clearly out of the question, the only other alternative is to increase troops to implement a COIN strategy. McChrystal has laid out the military requirements of such a mission; but the military can only be successful when there is a sound political strategy in place. Kerry has laid out the broad contours of such a political strategy. Let us hope that President Obama listens.

Going Where Bush Has Gone Before?

2009-10-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Is President Obama about to make the same mistake that President Bush did?

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times ran an article claiming that the Obama administration was, in its meetings to determine future strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan, considering a "middle path" that would require sending fewer than the 40,000 troops General McChrystal has stated to be the minimum necessary to follow a counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy that might possibly work. According to the article:

As the Obama administration debates whether to shift its aims in Afghanistan, officials at the Pentagon and National Security Council have begun developing "middle path" strategies that would require fewer troops than their ground commander is seeking.

Measures under consideration include closer cooperation with local tribal chiefs and regional warlords, using CIA agents as intermediaries and cash payments as incentives, said current and former officials who described the strategies on condition of anonymity.

Other steps would concentrate U.S. and allied troops in cities, pulling out of Afghanistan's widely dispersed rural areas. At the same time, the allied forces would push ahead with plans to intensify training of Afghan troops, officials said.

None of the strategies envision troop reductions, but officials said they would not require the 40,000-troop increase preferred by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander. A number of White House officials favor sending fewer than 20,000 additional troops.

...

With the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan already 8 years old, advocates of a middle approach question whether the American public will support a long-term effort.

"There is a growing view, a minority opinion, within the military that worries about the sustainability on the domestic front of what McChrystal is proposing," said an administration official. "A year and a half from now we could find there is not the will to sustain this McChrystal approach."

One approach would be to take McChrystal's plan and "pare it down," moving troops away from less important objectives, said a former official who served in both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The middle path strategies would not try to establish strict limits on U.S. efforts, such as focusing on attacking Al Qaeda, a posture once favored by Vice President Joe Biden.

It's one thing for President Obama to decide to not pursue a COIN strategy in favor of focusing on al Qaeda, as recommended by Biden. That is a strategic decision that, by virtue of its inherent logic, requires fewer troops to be deployed in Afghanistan. Letting the strategy determine the force posture is exactly how military planning is supposed to happen. But the Obama administration seems to be allowing its desired force posture guide its strategy, which is a disaster waiting to happen. This is exactly the mistake that the Bush administration made in the reconstruction of both Afghanistan and Iraq. In both situations, the strategy was determined by the number of troops the US was willing to commit in the field, rather than the desired strategy determining the appropriate troop levels.

The problem seems to be that Obama administration is worried that public opinion will not support a larger and longer commitment that will inevitably result in higher casualties (particularly in the short run). This problem is certainly exacerbated by the administration's domestic priorities and especially its effort to pass health care reform.

And here is where political science can be of use. The Obama administration is making the same mistake that Bill Clinton made in Somalia: misunderstanding the source of public discontent with military missions. As Peter Feaver (my graduate school professor and dissertation adviser) argues:

Research has shown that public support of a military campaign is chiefly a function of the mission's perceived stakes, the prospects for victory and the anticipated costs. Since the Persian Gulf War (though the seeds can be traced as far back as Vietnam), a myth has taken root among policymakers that only the costs matter -- that the public will only support policies that are "cheap" in the sense of not costing American lives. According to this view, the public rejected U.S. intervention in Somalia because American soldiers died, while it accepted our actions in Kosovo because no Americans died. This is the myth of the casualty-phobic public -- a canard that genuinely casualty-phobic policymakers have found expedient, but which has left America vulnerable to exactly the kind of terrorist attack we just witnessed. What is Osama bin Laden's fundamental premise if not the belief that killing some Americans will drive our country to its knees?

Actually, the public will support even a costly war provided the stakes warrant it and the president can persuasively promise victory. In this instance, the stakes could not be higher. What is lacking is a compelling account of victory, a frame for war aims that shapes how the public will interpret unfolding events.

Focusing on troop levels as the driver of strategic calculations undermines the ability to convey the "compelling account of victory" which is what in turn undermines public support for the military operations. President Bush, in spite of all the mistakes he and his administration made, did this during the surge (until the surge the Bush administration failed at this as well). It was clear to the American people what the surge was trying to accomplish and what would count as success.

If all the Obama administration is trying to is lower American casualties and avoid negative public opinion then it should simply find a way to get out, as that clearly signals that the US no longer has a strategic interest in Afghanistan. If it determines that the Taliban no longer poses a strategic threat to the US but that al Qaeda does, then Biden's plan makes sense. If it believes, as I do, that the two problems are linked and success will require dealing with both the Taliban and al Qaeda, that McChrystal's COIN strategy is the way to go.

The Obama administration must decide what its desired strategic outcome in Afghanistan is, and then listen to the military about what force package will be necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Letting politicians determine the force levels and then requiring the military to design strategy around those levels is doomed to fail.

How's that Nobel Working Out?

2009-10-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

[Sorry...one more post on this]

Yesterday was a bad day on the Iran front for President Obama. In spite of his magnanimous gesture of dismantling the ABM system scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia doesn't seem to be willing to cooperate with the US on the imposition of serious sanctions on Iran if Iran refuses or cannot demonstrate that its nuclear program is peaceful. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Larov stated that Russia believes the threat of sanctions is "counterproductive" and that, for now, continued negotiations are the only appropriate strategy. Even more problematic than the statement itself is the fact that it came in the midst of a visit to Russia by Secretary of State Clinton who, despite the prospect of better relations and Russian cooperation following the ABM decision, failed in her efforts to win promises of support for sanctions.

As I wrote a month ago, it was foolish of the US to scrap the ABM system without extracting any serious pledges from Russia about Iran. Iran's nuclear ambitions is one of the two or three most serious security issues faced not only by the US but by the international community and trading the ABM system for Russian cooperation should have been a no-brainer.

But this also demonstrates why it was so foolish of the Nobel committee to award the 2009 peace prize to President Obama. In an unprecedented defense of its decision, the committee said yesterday that it awarded the prize to Obama in part due to his decision to "scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe." But its far too early to say what the consequences of that decision will be. Perhaps the weakened commitment to the eastern European NATO countries will strengthen Russia and lead to more scenarios like the Russian invasion of Georgia? Perhaps Russia will continue to impede international and American efforts to sanction Iran and prevent it from proliferating? The move to replace an ABM system with an theater-based missile defense system in and of itself was not one that inherently increased or decreased the likelihood of peace. So far, the Obama administration seems to have missed a golden opportunity to use that decision to make progress in keeping Iran non-nuclear. What other results are yet to come?

Decision Time in Afghanistan

2009-10-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

[I apologize for all the recent posts on Obama and US foreign policy. I plan to get back to broader discussions of international security, but there've just been too many issues of interest in USFP to pass up.)

President Obama is rapidly approaching what may prove to be the most important and defining decision of his presidency: What to do in Afghanistan. The military has presented Obama with a number of possible plans, but most sources agree that General Stanley McChrystal has told Obama that an increase of 40,000 US troops in Afghanistan is the minimum number necessary to prevent the collapse of the US-led effort there. If this option is selected, the thinking seems to be that US troops would begin implementing COIN (counter-insurgency strategy) along the lines of what was done in Iraq after the surge: Extend protection for Afghan citizens in an effort to separate them away from the Taliban and allow for the creation of government institutions and the provision of services (this report from Reuters does a nice job of illustrating what will be required for the COIN strategy to work). If the US's goal is to stabilize Afghanistan and continue moving Afghanistan down the road to democracy, most analysts see adopting a COIN strategy as the only way.

McChrystal also offered the president two other options: A troop increase of more than 40,000 (the more the better to implement COIN) and an option of no troop increase. Implicit in the third options (it very well have been made explicit, but we don't have the details of the meeting yet) is that sending anything less than 40,000 more soliders isn't worth the effort or the lives as it won't create a large enough force to protect and stabilize the country. These proposals come at a time when the US is hotly debating which strategy should be adopted in Afghanistan. One side, led by Vice President Biden is urging the president not to push for a large increase in troop presence and to focus on hunting down al Qaeda in Pakistan instead of continuing to attempt to stabilize Afghanistan. The other side, mainly the military (Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton have yet to reveal their preferences) continues to argue for a classic COIN strategy and the tens of thousands of troops that will require.

Increasingly, however, the Obama administration seems to be moving towards focusing on al Qaeda instead of Afghanistan. And while there has been no formal (or at least public) decision on McChrystal's proposal, Obama has begun backing away from his previous position of Afghanistan as a "necessary war." Last week, a senior administration official told the Associated Press that "Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future and appears inclined to send only as many more U.S. troops as needed to keep al-Qaida at bay."

The problems in Afghanistan certainly make it easier to move away from the COIN option to a focus on al Qaeda. Between the magnitude of the electoral fraud rampant in the August elections becoming increasingly apparent on one hand and reports of the failure of US efforts to create a functioning, legitimate government on on the other, it becomes harder and harder for Obama to justify sending thousands of American men and women to fight and die for the corrupt and inefficient Karzai regime.

The dilemma facing Obama demonstrates the difficulties the US has pursing its foreign policy, particularly in the long term. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America, "a democracy finds it difficult to coordinate the details of a great undertaking and to fix on some plan and carry it through with determination in spite of obstacles. ...[T]he tendency of [the United States is] to obey its feelings rather than its calculations and to abandon a long-matured plan to satisfy a momentary passion...." Just last month, Obama was referring to Afghanistan as a "war of necessity" and warning that "those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again" referring to the nexus between al Qaeda and the Taliban.

By itself al Qaeda does not pose a truly serious threat to the US and its interests. Since the loss of its base in Afghanistan, al Qaeda has had difficulty carrying out any significant operations of any real complexity (the Spanish train bombing and the London bus bombings, while horrifying, do not represent the kind of sophisticated operation that al Qaeda would like to be implementing; the London attack in particular had very little strategic payoff). But the Taliban, in fact, both by itself and in conjunction with al Qaeda do, in fact, represent a significant threat.

First, the Taliban in Afghanistan is rapidly increasing in numbers, growing from 7,000 to an estimated 25,000 in just three years, and is becoming more and more independent from its Pakistan branch. If the US fails to deal with this insurgency and backs away from the Karzai government (or whichever government is running Afghanistan), it is more than possible that the Taliban would reclaim control of the country. Setting aside the human rights disaster that would inevitably ensue, al Qaeda would likely quickly return from the mountainous regions of Pakistan and reestablish its more centralized organizational structure that enabled it to carry out the 9/11 attacks.

Secondly, the Pakistan branch of the Taliban is posing a serious problem to Pakistan. It wasn't all that long ago that the Taliban was threatening the stability of the Pakistani government, prompting fears over the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Increasingly, the Taliban is attacking Pakistani nuclear facilities, and the recent attack against an army headquarters in Rawalpindi makes clear the growing capability and sophistication of the Taliban's military power.

One could make the case about Afghanistan that the US has no real interest in the government there and that containing the Taliban and focusing on al Qaeda would be a better strategy. But when Pakistan is added into the equation, the porous border makes it vital that the US do more to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan itself. If the US backs away, both the Taliban and al Qaeda currently in Pakistan will return to Afghanistan and continue their attacks against both Pakistan and the world from relative safety.

Merely focusing on al Qaeda in Pakistan or on the governance of Afghanistan is too short-sighted. The nexus of the Taliban in both countries, the relationship with al Qaeda and the potential fragility of Pakistan make this a very serious problem and one of considerable importance to US national interest and global security. Obama needs to remember why he argued for some time that Afghanistan, and not Iraq, was the proper focus of the war on terror.

But even if he chooses to focus on al Qaeda, he needs to make a decision soon and in a decisive manner. The current dithering is rapidly undermining domestic public and political opinion which will, in turn, make it more difficult to sustain whichever option Obama picks. When the commander-in-chief determines that American soldiers need to be sent into harm's way, he needs to clearly justify his rationale to the American people and Congress.

Obama Wins the Nobel Prize for (Wishful Thinking and Good Intentions in the Cause of) Peace

2009-10-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

Seriously? The decision by the Nobel Prize committee to award Barack Obama with the 2009 Peace Prize is perhaps the most absurd decision by a committee that has long reveled in absurdity. Obama has, since coming to the office in January, accomplished exactly nothing in his foreign policy. His "negotiate first" approach to dealings with Russia, Iran, and North Korea have not borne fruit; he has, to appease his domestic constituencies, initiated a trade war over an idiotic tire issue; he has continued the withdrawal from Iraq started by President Bush; he has done nothing to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan; he's made absolutely no progress in resolving the Palestinian-Israel problem.

But wait, you say...it's too early to judge these outcomes. His decision to terminate the ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic may yet work out, especially if it gets Russia to bear down on Iran; he's still deciding what to do in Afghanistan and it will surely be several years before we know the outcome there; the trade war with China won't develop as China realizes that domestic protection is just part of normal politics. But that's exactly the point. It's far too early to determine that Obama deserves a peace prize. And everyone knows it.

It's even possible the Nobel will complicate Obama's efforts. Obama is not the president or leader of the world; he is the president of the United States and acts in the interests of the US, not the world. Sometimes those interests are aligned, but sometimes they aren't. But now his policies have the imprimatur of the international community: What's good for the US is good for the world. How will that affect negotiations with Iran or North Korea or Russia or the Palestinians?

So, if Obama hasn't actually done anything to deserve it, then he must have been given the award on one of two (or possibly both) criteria: What he plans/hopes to accomplish in his presidency or that Nobel committee likes him and is especially glad that he's not George Bush. Officially, the award was given for Obama's work to create a "new climate in international politics" and his work on nuclear disarmament.

But look at the recent list of winners. 2001: The UN and Kofi Annan. 2002: Jimmy Carter. 2005: The International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei. 2007: Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A laundry list of hopers, wishers, and dreamers who have actually accomplished little.

The problem with the committee awarding the prize to those striving towards peace, rather than those who's work has actually accomplished anything is the overt politicization that has emerged with the prize. Yes, the committee has given the prize to many truly deserving people: Martti Ahtisaari, Wangari Muta Maathai, and Muhammad Yunus among the recent winners. And these are exactly the kind of people who should be winning the award. Activists, not politicians.

Additionally, who knows what will happen? Maybe Obama will be forced to attack Iran, or allow Israel to do it. Maybe at some point in his administration, as most US presidents do at some point in their administrations, Obama will decide to use force to advance US interests at the expense of international opinion. Awarding the prize on intentions and wishes is exceedingly dangerous given the volatile and complicated nature of running the most powerful country in the world.

Could the committee not have found someone more deserving? Like Morgan Tsvangirai (OK, he's a politician, but he is literally struggling day and night to transform Zimbabwe and end the reign of one of the world's worst dictators), like someone in Iran leading the protests against the regime, like someone in Iraq working to reconcile Sunnis and Shia, like someone in Afghanistan risking reprisals from the Taliban to educate Afghani girls? Like a Chinese human rights activist?

Obama's best move would be to turn down the prize, and ask the committee to reconsider him once he's succeeded in his policy initiatives. But that's not going to happen.

This is an embarrassment that taints the prize beyond repair.

Why Does Iran Want Nuclear Weapons?

2009-10-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

Events seem to be coming to a head of some kind in the negotiations between Iran and the international community over Iran's nuclear program. Just today, Iran agreed to send its enriched uranium to Russia for processing, where it will be turned into fuel for a small, non-weaponized, reactor. Of course, as the New York Times points out, "If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, the accomplishment would be hollow." Over at Shadow Government, Peter Feaver, my former dissertation advisor, has an excellent post analyzing the possible outcomes of the on-going talks:

How should we measure success in the talks with Iran that begin today? I propose the following sliding scale.

1. Breathtaking, mission accomplished victory: Iran agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons program, submit to a rigorous verification and safeguards regime, and open substantive dialogue on its support for global terrorism. If this is achieved, President Obama would be a shoo-in for the Nobel Peace Prize. Chance of this happening: I would guess near zero.

2. Demonstrable and significant progress: Iran's continued recalcitrance is identified early by all the relevant players, especially Russia and China, and the UN Security Council responds within a few weeks with a substantial ramping up of de facto sanctions on Iran -- sanctions that involve the effective participation of Iran's chief trading partners, the EU, Russia, China, and India. Chance of this happening: I would guess not zero, but maybe just a 1-in-10 chance.

3. No progress beyond what the Bush team already achieved: Iran's continued recalcitrance provokes a range of global rhetorical censure ranging from Chinese tut-tutting to American (or French or British) bluster. The United States unilaterally increases sanctions pressure, but only incrementally because U.S. unilateral leverage over Iran is minimal. Europeans agree to review their options for an incremental increase of sanctions pressure themselves, but do not commit irrevocably to a ramp up in pressure. Russians and Chinese acknowledge that Iran has not been forthcoming, but block further sanctions on the grounds that these would be counterproductive. Chance of this happening: I would guess this is the most likely outcome, so maybe a 4-in-10 chance.

4. Less progress than what the Bush team already achieved: Iran's continued recalcitrance even after the U.S. has played its "hole card" of the evidence of Iranian duplicity concerning the second enrichment site splits the international coalition and key members, likely Russia or China, blame the United States for its mishandling of the negotiations. Chance of this happening: I fear this is the next most-likely-outcome, so maybe a 3-in-10 chance.

5. False progress is achieved: Desperate to show progress, the United States accepts a fig-leaf arrangement, or merely declares the negotiations fruitful when they are not, and so there is neither true progress towards Iranian relinquishment of their nuclear program nor increased leverage imposed on them to make a deal in the next round more likely. Chance of this happening: I don't think this is as likely as some Obama critics think, but there is a non-trivial possibility of this happening, perhaps barely a 2-in-10 chance.

6. U.S. capitulation: Desperate for a deal, the United States follows the advice of some and signs a grand bargain agreement that "resolves" the issue by preemptively conceding to all of Iran's demands, including the demand that the world community stop complaining about the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Chance of this happening: not likely, probably only marginally more likely than outcome #1.

And in an op-ed in yesterday's Boston Globe, Nicholas Burns argues that the revelation of the previously secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom "gives the United States the most important opportunity in years to pressure Tehran to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions:"

...the United States has significantly greater credibility to take advantage of Iran’s mendacity and to lead an international coalition toward comprehensive sanctions should talks fail. But, Obama must now turn to a more tough-minded policy. He should ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian government by moving from a strategy of engagement to one that combines continued negotiations, tough new inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the threat of much more powerful sanctions.

Prior to any argument about what will or will not result from the current negotiations must be an understanding of why Iran wants nuclear weapons (assuming, contrary to Iran's claims, it is in fact developing its nuclear energy program with the eventual goal of weaponization). Only if we understand Iran's interests and preferences can we even hope to make progress in talks.

So, why would Iran want nuclear weapons? I can think of at least five reasons (none of which are necessarily mutually exclusive): for defense and deterrence, for aggression, to ensure its regional power, as a bargaining chip, and as a key to international status. Any chance of getting Iran to cease developing nuclear weapons depend on which these is the primary motivation. Let's consider each in turn.

Defense/deterrence: It shouldn't come as any surprise that states see nuclear weapons as the only means by which to defend themselves against the United States. Going back to the aftermath of the first Gulf War, an high-ranking Indian military officer who conducted India's after-action report noted that the first lesson of the war should be that if your national interests may run afoul of the US, be sure to get a nuclear weapon. Clearly, Iran looks at what happened to Iraq and Afghanistan and worries about what the US could do to Iran if the US so desired. Iran's national and regional interests obviously are often in conflict (although not necessarily as much as people assume) with those of the US; thus, Iran very well could be seeking nuclear weapons to prevent the US from attempting regime change. It wouldn't even necessarily take a large arsenal to deter the US. War games in which I participated when I worked in the defense industry in the mid-1990s concluded that a credible threat against even a close US ally (like Turkey or Israel) could be enough to deter the US from attacking. If this is the primary reason Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, there is little the international community will be able to do to prevent it as nuclear capability is essentially an end unto itself. There's no other way Iran could really develop enough military capability to deter the US.

Aggression: As many in Israel seem to fear, its certainly possible that Iran is seeking WMD for aggressive reasons. Perhaps it wants to incinerate Israel, perhaps it merely wants to be able to employ a "keep out" strategy against the US in the event it embarks on a more conventional military adventure. If this is motivating Iran's nuclear ambitions, there is a better chance of getting Iran to cease, unless it simply wants to attack Israel out of some millenarian concern. In that case, Iran would be undeterrable and it's probably impossible to move Iran off of the path towards nukes. But, if Iran sees nuclear weapons as merely another weapon, or as a deterrent cover to launch a conventional war, that suggests some kind of cost-benefit analysis that can be applied to change Iran's assessment. If Iran can be made to see aggression as too costly or as unlikely to succeed, nuclear weapons become less appealing. It doesn't make for a high likelihood of success, but the door isn't shut either.

Regional power: Perhaps Iran was nuclear weapons to cement itself as the dominant power in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Like the aggression option, this implies that while Iran may have a strong interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, it's doing so as a means to a different end. And, like in the aggression option, it's then possible to change Iran's calculations. Not easy, but possible.

Bargaining chip: If Iran's nuclear program is really designed to be used as a bargaining chip, this obviously presents the best scenario for getting Iran to give up the program. The problem in this scenario is, of course, determining what Iran wants.

International status: As India long argued, the key to being accepted as a serious player on the world stage is nuclear weapon status. Perhaps Iran feels slighted and is seeking a nuclear weapon to push its way into the highest levels of international politics. In this scenario, the question becomes whether Iran can get that status and respect without developing nuclear weapons. India certainly never believed it could.

As I see things, I believe Iran's primary motivation is the first one on the list: defense and deterrence. If this is correct, it means both good and bad news. The bad news is that it will probably be impossible to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If Iran has decided that the best, if not the only, way to ensure its national security is to proliferate, it's hard to imagine that decision being altered by any combination of international sanctions or pressure (especially the kind of sanctions or pressure likely to emerge from a disparate coalition of states with unaligned interests).

The good news, however, is that Iran proliferating may not be such a problem. If Iran's main motivation is defense, proliferating may in fact stabilize the regional situation, as a state not fearful for its continued existence can be a more rational and well-behaved state. Indeed as Thomas P. M. Barnett notes:

if history is any guide, both the United States and Israel are looking at the first real chance for a durable regional security architecture to emerge (now that you should expect a nuclear Saudi Arabia and Turkey to show up at the negotiating table, too). Yes, the hotheads on all sides seem desperate to freak out over this prospect, but, again, read your history: With the exceptions of our allies in Britain and France, the U.S. has looked down upon every rising power to ever get the bomb as constituting a loose canon capable of all manner of nefarious acts and strategic stupidity. And yet we're the only one that's ever pulled the trigger.

Of course, a nuclear Iran may be a more dangerous Iran, especially if you're skeptical about the ability of the US to develop an effective deterrent relationship with a regional power like Iran (as I am). However, if Iran can't be stopped and if Iran's primary motivation is defense, the deterrence question lessens, especially as Israel will likely be able to create regional deterrence.

So, the question one must ask when assessing and predicting the talks about Iran's nuclear program is: How confident are we that we know why Iran wants nuclear weapons?

An Iranian Referendum on US Foreign Policy

2009-09-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Recent events surrounding Iran's nuclear program have certainly stirred up a hornets' nest of concerned observers. First, Iran admitted the existence of secret nuclear enrichment plant that led to even Iran's erstwhile allies of Russia and China to issue rebukes. Then today, to wrap up two days of war games, Iran tested upgraded versions of its most advanced medium-range missiles -- the Shahab-3 and the Sajjil, both of which have ranges sufficient to threaten Europe and Israel. Coming on the heels of the UN General Assembly meeting, these developments have seemed to create a new impetus for tightening the screws on Iran in an effort to prevent Iran from developing an extant nuclear weapons capability (while the US believes Iran is close to having the ability to assemble a nuclear bomb on short notice it does not claim that Iran presently has any functional nuclear weapons). Additionally, in the wake of the decision by the Obama administration to scrap plans to deploy a ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia had made noises indicating it may be willing to impose stricter sanctions on Iran for its uncooperative behavior and unwillingness to comport to its international obligations.

All of this makes for an important crossroads for President Obama and his preferred course of foreign policy. Obama has pursued, as he did during his electoral campaign, a strategy of "negotiate first." However to date Obama's offer of negotiations have been rewarded with very little success, largely because Iran has had little reason to respond. Iran most likely sees nuclear weapons as a critical component of its national interest, both to defend itself against the US (and Israel) but also to increase its regional power. Because the US has been offering negotiations from a position of weakness, Iran was able to ignore the calls to talk about its nuclear program.

Now, however, Obama has a real opportunity to increase the pressure on Iran and make it impossible for Iran to continue to avoid negotiating. France and Great Britain are both ramping up the rhetoric and have expressed their willingness to support tougher sanctions, as have Russia and China, although it's still far from certain what Russia will actually do when it comes time to enact (or enforce) increased sanctions. Obama must exploit this window of opportunity to impose tougher conditions on Iran prior to continuing discussions. Obama must move quickly to exploit the international furor at Iran's secret enrichment facility and the current Russian goodwill. If the moment had been exploited, sanctions can be put in place that could force Iran to negotiate seriously; sanctions could even be put in place with an automatic waiver to suspend them in the event Iran chooses to open meaningful negotiations.

If Obama sticks to his "negotiate first" policy and refuses to push the Security Council to impose more serious penalties on Iran for its intransigence, he will not only have missed a golden opportunity. He will also expose his foreign policy as toothless and ill-suited for the turbulent world of international relations. If, however, he realizes that serious negotiations fundamentally depend on serious consequences (or at the least the threat of serious consequences), he may be able to take advantage of the currently open window of opportunity and lay the groundwork for a meaningful international coalition to deal with Iran.

Time For A Decision On Afghanistan

2009-09-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the leak of General Stanley McChrystal's report on the situation in Afghanistan, in which McChrystal warns that more troops are needed in Afghanistan and if they are not provided the situation "will likely result in failure," President Obama is faced with perhaps the most difficult and important foreign policy decision of his administration. And it seems as if, so far, Obama has no idea what to do.

Back in February, the new president referred to Afghanistan as, along with Pakistan, "the central front in the war on terror" and that he would try to replicate the US "surge" strategy in Iraq that stabilized that country. In March, Obama warned that if “if the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged that country will again be a base for terrorists.” In April, Secretary of State Clinton told Congress that "the core goal of President Barack Obama’s anti-terror strategy is to defeat al-Qaida and prevent its return to Afghanistan." And just last month, Obama declared that that the war in Afghanistan "is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again."

So what are we to make of Obama's comment last week that there will be "no quick decision" on whether to increase the US troop presence in Afghanistan? If the war in Afghanistan is a "war of necessity," if it is "the central front in the war on terror," what is there to think about when the commanding general reports that more troops are needed to stave off defeat?

Unless Obama has changed his mind about the nature and import of the war, the answer is likely that domestic politics has interfered with his strategic calculations. Perhaps the need to hold together the Democratic party on the issue of health care has caused Obama to back away from Afghanistan as more and more Democrats become disillusioned with the worsening situation there.

But this is a very dangerous strategy. Obama's wavering is undoubtedly contributing to growing public uncertainty about the campaign. Late last month, a majority of Americans questioned the necessity of the war, while just over 25% indicated that they would support a decision to increase troop levels. A poll earlier this month revealed that 41% of Americans want troop levels reduced. As work by Peter Feaver, Chris Gelpi, and Jason Reifler (full disclosure: Feaver and Gelpi were on my dissertation committee, while Reifler was in graduate school with me) demonstrates, American support (or lack thereof) for US military operations depends on "the retrospective attitude of whether the war was the right thing in the first place, and the prospective attitude of whether the war will be won." So, when Obama backs away from his certainty that Afghanistan is a war of necessity that must be fought to protect national and international security and when he wavers on whether to send troops, public opinion wavers right along with him.

This is not to argue that Obama MUST send more troops to Afghanistan. There are many good arguments that Afghanistan is, in fact, no longer a war worth fighting. But, his indecision is perhaps the most dangerous of any action (or inaction). The longer a decision on increasing troops is delayed and the less certain Obama and his administration seem about whether the war can be won, the more quickly public opinion will erode. Wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, given their complicated nature and protracted lengths, depend heavily on solid public support. When that erodes, particularly for a president with as grand a domestic agenda as Obama, success becomes less and less likely.

President Obama needs to make his decision and he needs to make it soon. If he does, in fact, believe that Afghanistan is a war of necessity -- a war that American national interest demands be fought -- then he has no choice but to fight it with all the necessary resources. Of course, there are still debates over strategy to be argued. But when the top commander is warning of defeat unless more troops are sent, strategy debates need to settled quickly. If Afghanistan is no longer a war of necessity -- if the US really doesn't care whether the Taliban regains control of the country, so long as al Qaeda is unable to use the country as a base as it once did -- then Obama needs to make that decision clear as quickly as possible. But the current situation of indecision and uncertainty is untenable and dangerous. It's time for a decision on Afghanistan.

Obama and European Missile Defense

2009-09-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

President Obama's decision to cease the deployment of a long-range ballistic missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic has ruffled lots of feathers. There seem to be two major objections to Obama's move. First, that scrapping the program increases the threat posed by Iran's potential nuclear capability, and second, that scrapping the program is a slap in the face to the Eastern European countries that have proven themselves to be staunch allies. Those who support Obama's decision point to the fact that Obama plans to replace the scrapped system with one designed to intercept short- and medium-range missiles rather than long-range ballistic missiles.

Obama's decision was, I believe, the correct one. But, I'd like to see him go all the way and scrap missile defense entirely. I've been on the record for years in my opposition to the cost of developing a functional missile defense program, and still believe that the money would be better off put towards other things, such buying more F-22s, hardening the US grid against EMP attacks, or developing better cyberspace defenses. I don't see that that calculus has changed. It's true that defending against short- and medium-range missiles aimed against US allies rather than against CONUS itself makes more sense; deterrence is likely to be more difficult to achieve when the stakes are asymmetric (it's one thing to threaten a nuclear response to a strike against an American; it's quite another to do so in response to an attack against an ally). But, given all the threats faced by the US and the limitations on resources, certainly exacerbated by the recession, I'm still doubtful that missile defense is worth the money.

But, while Obama's decision moved in the right direction, it was handled very poorly. First, it is not likely to go over well with the Czech Republic and Poland. Both countries have been solid US allies, expending their own political capital to support US decisions, are are justifiably worried now, especially given the US reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia, that the US may be more interested in easing tensions with Russia than protecting their far-away allies. For Eastern Europe, missile defense wasn't so much a protection against Iran as it was a sign of US commitment to their defense. Moving away from that doesn't help to convince these states that they will be able to count on the US when the chips are down (certainly, the weaknesses of NATO being exposed in Afghanistan are compounding those fears). Certainly, more should have been done to consult with Poland and the Czech Republic as well as to signal America's strong commitment to them.

Even worse, however, is that the US has made a huge concession to Russia without getting anything in return. Russia had long voiced loud opposition to the proposed eastern European deployment. But the program, as envisioned, offered no threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent. This was a system designed to intercept a small number of missiles, not the hundreds or thousands that would be launched in a Russian response (of course, if Russia was planning on launching a small-scale strike against Warsaw, the defense shield would have been problematic). So, Russian opposition to the missile defense program stems from Russian opposition to increasing US entrenchment in what Russia considers to be its backyard. By backing down here, Obama has likely signaled to Russia that the US is unsteady in its commitment to eastern Europe. Furthermore, that concession came with no reciprocal concession from Russia. At the very least, Obama should have extracted a promise from Russia to support increased international sanctions on Iran for continuing to defy international law with its nuclear program (a position I advocated almost two years back). Instead, the US gave Russia a major policy victory, and in return Prime Minister Putin announced just last week that Russia would not support increased sanctions on Iran, a stance further supported by Foreign Minister Lavrov, and that it is convinced that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful. Russian President Medvedev did say earlier this week that while “sanctions are not very effective on the whole...sometimes you have to embark on sanctions and they can be right" which seemed to hint at a possibility Russia would, in fact, back stronger sanctions. But, that comment isn't a clear enough commitment to warrant giving up such a important bargaining chip as the European missile defense system.

It's possible that a deal has been worked out and that when the issue of Iran comes up in the Security Council Russia will indeed support the imposition of tougher sanctions. But I'm not holding my breath. By not extracting stronger public statements that would commit Russia to a course of action, the door has been left open for a Russian change of position. Obama made the right decision, but in all the wrong ways.

Welcome Back!

2009-09-18T09:40:00.001-07:00

Howdy, if there's anybody still out there...Security Dilemmas is back. I took the summer off to recharge the batteries. Blogging can be an exhausting and demanding avocation and the pressure of having to keep up with international politics had grown quite tiring. After a few months of rest, however, I'm tanned, rested, and ready to resume blogging. And so, without any further ado....

June 4, 1989

2009-06-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Drawing the Line

2009-05-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

The situation on the Korean peninsula continues to escalate, with the latest being North Korea's threat to attack US and South Korean warships if either country attempts to search North Korean vessels as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative (the PSI is one of President Bush's biggest successes, as it created a global network of inspections and interdictions aimed at preventing transfers of nuclear technology and materiel).

In the face of North Korea's insults, threats, and saber rattling, the US needs to respond forcefully and unambigiously: both the US and South Korea will act to enforce international law, and any attack on South Korea warships or other assets will be met in kind. The US has far too much at stake here to back down in the face of a threat that is, I believe, more bluster than anything: North Korea will lose any military engagement between it and the United States and even losing a small exchange will seriously compromise the stability of a regime that depends on the full and unquestioning support of the military. While the US has few good options, North Korea simply has none. Backing down here will allow North Korea to proliferate internally as well as to continue aiding other countries, such as Syria, to do so as well. Keeping North Korea in check is critical for maintaining stability in Asia, and the US simply cannot allow North Korea to willfully defy international law and will.

This is certainly shaping up to be President Obama's first serious test. Obama needs to reassure American allies and make it clear to both Russia and China that the US will not permit North Korea to proliferate in this manner, to defy international law and will, or to attack South Korea in any way. Despite its often-times bizarre behavior, North Korea has always behaved rationally; it's hard to see what North Korea stands to gain by going to war with either South Korea or the US. Rather, North Korea is counting on the international community to once again fail to back up its words with strong action. Obama must be prepared to send American soliders, sailors, and airmen into combat, but being ready to do so makes it all the more likely that he will not have to do so.

Another Opportunity for Obama to Miss an Opportunity

2009-05-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

When North Korea launched a "satellite" back in April, I wrote about how Obama missed a golden opportunity to shore up the UN's role in security issues as well as to put together a serious international effort to rein in North Korea.

Things have gotten worse.

Over the weekend, North Korea conducted what seems to be a successful test of a nuclear device that erases the failure of its previous attempt. Yesterday and today, North Korea has been launching several missiles -- both surface-to-air and surface-to-ship -- and is threatening to launch several more tomorrow. President Obama has vowed a swift and strong response to the test and launches, but it's not clear what good options exist at this point. Dan Blumenthal and Robert Kagan, in an op-ed in today's Washington Post outline the paucity of choices for the US:

the United States probably has little choice but to wait out Kim until the emergence of a leader who can make the strategic decision to abandon the nuclear weapons program. In the meantime, Washington should embark on a three-pronged approach. First, it should enhance its deterrent to protect itself, South Korea and Japan. That means, above all, bolstering American and allied missile defenses and deterrent capabilities. Unfortunately, it is precisely American missile defense capabilities that the Obama administration is now cutting -- despite the growing missile threat from North Korea and Iran. Second, it should strengthen multilateral efforts to stem North Korean proliferation, including more active efforts at interdiction and freezing bank accounts used to fund proliferation. Third, it should give up on the six-party talks. If it ever proves useful to talk to Pyongyang -- a big "if" -- let's do so directly.

Blumenthal and Kagan argue that neither China nor Russia has any serious interest in reining in North Korea, and thus efforts focused on mustering international will through the UN are useless.

While it's true that China does have an interest in a unpredictable and unfettered North Korea, that interest has its limits. China most certainly does not have an interest in a strengthened and proliferated Japan, which is a very serious possibility in the wake of the latest test. As Reuters reported over the weekend, Japan's ruling party is preparing to alter the constitution to allow for preemptive strikes under Japan's pacifistic doctrine. The LDP is also considering developing an indigenous early-warning satellite capability as Japan is currently dependent on US intelligence for warning of missile launches.

This would be a most unwelcome development for both China and Russia, which have long benefited from having a weakened and restrained Japan on their borders. And this is Obama's opening.

It's true that there aren't really any good options here. While it may have been feasible for the US to strike against the rocket launched two months ago, it is not possible for the US to use limited strikes against the nuclear program or the short-range missiles being launched now. The only option that exists while waiting out the passing of Kim Jong-Il is to get the UN to impose a complete and total sanctions regime on North Korea along the lines of that which was imposed on South Africa during the apartheid era. Doing so would require not just the acquiesence but the participation of both China and Russia, neither of which would participate for free.

But Obama has two things to offer: One is the prospect of the US operating through the multilateral channels of the UN, which Obama has clearly expressed a preference for doing when possible. Obama should make it clear to both Russia and China that North Korea is a test of their willingness to support the UN on issues of security, and that if they fail, the US will simply consider the UN to be obsolete on such issues in the future. If they want the UN to be a major player and to restrain the unilateralism of the US, then the UN has to be able to deal with such relatively easy cases as North Korea. Second, Obama should offer to use his good offices to prevent Japan from expanding its military doctrine and, down the road, from proliferating.

Both of these are issues about which Russia and China both care deeply; more deeply I believe than they care about keeping North Korea on the loose. If Obama plays his cards right, North Korea can be made to pay a meaningful and painful price for its wanton disregard of its obligations under international law.

But I doubt Obama will play his cards right. While Obama has shown a willingness to talk to any and all and to "reset" US relations, so far his talking has borne little if any fruit. Iran is just as intransigent, if not more so, than before, North Korea is, obviously, even more defiant, and Russia and China have responded to Obama's overtures with caution rather than warmth. So far, I've seen little evidence that Obama, his cabinet, or his policy aides have a strong coherent sense of policy to match their enthusiasm for talking.

Does It Matter What Pelosi Knew and When?

2009-05-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Last week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi revealed that she had been briefed by the CIA about waterboarding in September 2002, although she argues that there was little she could have done in response. While Pelosi has been a vocal and vehement critic of the Bush administration and waterboarding, but claims she saw little way of challenging the use of waterboading, and other controversial interrogation tactics, but to win control of Congress for the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, in her column yesterday, Maureen Dowd asserted that "the question of what Pelosi knew or didn’t, or when she did or didn’t know, is irrelevant to how W. and Cheney broke the law and authorized torture."

This is an absolutely absurd argument, because it completely misses the point. The critical question to understanding the debate surrounding the use of waterboarding is to determine whether waterboarding qualifies under existing US and international law as torture. That's what the OLC memos were attempting to do: define the parameters of torture and determine on what side of the line waterboarding falls. Now those memos were often fast and loose with the law, and display some seriously shoddy methodologies; but, that does not inherently make them illegal.

If the OLC and the CIA believed that Congress knew about their legal determinations and the use of waterboading, it's perfectly reasonable for both offices to assume that, in fact, there aren't any seriously problems with their legal rationales or the use of the technique. As Justice Jackson explained in the famous Youngstown decision (the Steel Seizure case during the Korean War), when the executive branch takes an action that is not contested by Congress, which in turn signals tacit approval or acceptance, the tendency is to assume that the action is in fact legal and within the purview of presidential power. By failing to act in any way to protest, block, or outlaw the use of waterboarding, congressional leadership sent a message of acceptance.

But what of Pelosi's claim that there was nothing she could do other than try to take control of Congress? The Democrats have controlled Congress since the midterm elections of 2006 and has not tried to outlaw waterboarding (Senator Kennedy tried to attach an amendment banning waterboarding that was rejected, and Congress passed a bill forcing the CIA to adhere to the techniques approved in the US Army Field Manual which was vetoed and not repassed). And since January 2009, the Democrats have controlled the House, the Senate, and the presidency...guess how many bills banning waterboarding have been passed?

It does matter what Pelosi knew and when. It does matter what stance on these issues Congress takes. Congress is the enacter of the laws, and the laws on torture are frustratingly vague and open to different interpretations. If Congress doesn't trust the presidency to interpret those laws acceptably, it is incumbent on Congress to pass clarifying legislation. When the executive branch acts with the knowledge of Congress and without protest, it is only right to assume that the action is legal.

As I have said several times before, if Congress REALLY cares about this issue, it must pass legislation outlawing waterboarding or restricting the CIA to the Army Field Manual techniques immediately. If it doesn't, it is placing its trust in an executive order issued by President Obama, an order than can be undone by a subsequent order. And does Congress really trust Obama -- the very same Obama who has kept the policy of extraordinary rendition, slowed the withdrawal from Iraq, revived the use of military commissions, invoked the states secret privilege, etc. -- that much?

Iraq Journal, Part Four

2009-05-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

[The third dispatch from my father about his experiences living and teaching in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimani is up on City Journal. You can read the first one here about his arrival in and first impressions of Suli; his second dispatch about the economic and political situation is here; one from my mother about a visit to Halabja can be found here.]

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Three
A visit to Saddam’s chamber of horrors
14 May 2009

Editors’ note: This is the third in a series of dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq–Sulaimani. The first and second installments are here and here.

The “Red Museum” in the city of Sulaimani, or Suli, isn’t red or much of a museum. It’s three hideous concrete buildings, erected in 1979 to house Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus as part of his campaign to subdue the Kurds after their quixotic 1975 uprising—quixotic because they trusted Iranian and American promises of support. Two of the buildings had windows, but they were shot out by Suli’s enraged citizens in a spontaneous uprising after the Gulf War in 1991. The third had no windows, because it was a place where no one should be able to see in or out. Sunlight wasn’t welcome in a chamber of torture and death.

Saddam’s campaign began as a giant feat of social engineering and ethnic gerrymandering. By 1979, the regime razed over 1,000 villages along the borders with Turkey and Iran and moved their inhabitants to grim resettlement camps. Arabs were moved into, and Kurds expelled from, strategic and disputed towns in the region, especially Kirkuk. But Saddam also spent lots of money on economic development to dampen Kurdish nationalist zeal.

Things changed dramatically with the revival of the Kurdish rebel forces, the advent of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, and the formation of the Kurdistan National Front in Tehran in 1987. With Saddam now viewing the Kurds as an Iranian-backed fifth column, ethnic gerrymandering gave way to lethal repression, culminating in the genocidal chemical murder of the Anfal campaigns, which began with attacks around Suli in February 1988. When Iranian and Kurdish forces took the city of Halabja in March and threatened to take the nearby Darbandikan dam as well, Saddam’s regime shelled and gassed that city and its surrounding villages. By the end of the Anfal campaigns in August 1988, according to historian David McDowall, Saddam’s vast apparatus of murder had killed perhaps as many as 200,000 men, women, and children, produced hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees in Turkey and Iran, and left Kurdistan bereft of rural village life.

All of this is cold historical fact. There is nothing cold about the faces one sees on the walls of the Red Museum, where from 1979 until the uprising in 1991, Saddam tortured and killed in pursuit of the Kurdish rebels. Though Saddam usually buried his victims in mass graves as far as possible from where they lived, he had no scruples about compiling a photographic record of the killing. The first photo one sees freezes the blood. It looks like a picture in a college yearbook: a class of 13 young men, perhaps a debating or a Latin club, except for the anxiety evident in their eyes. The legend informs that it was taken in the prison in 1986 and that all but one of these young men were tortured and executed. Then photo after photo shows a bloody body crumpled at the foot of the stake to which the victim was tied to be shot. In one photo, two Baathist security men, grinning widely beneath their mustaches, hold up a headless corpse, their free hands raised in the victory salute. Next comes a picture of three women—child, mother, and grandmother—with faces frozen in fear just before their execution for suspected connection with rebels in the mountains. Numerous images record the last minutes in the lives of such women and children.

Then we see photos of the villages: buses being loaded with dispirited inhabitants headed toward industrial-style execution; smoldering ruins; piles of the dead killed by artillery and bombs. And throughout, Saddam’s soldiers filled with jubilant pride at their murder of the innocent and unarmed. The walls of the last room are covered with photos taken by Suli citizens during the Kurds’ short-lived 1991 uprising against Saddam. We see Baathist tanks on fire, a person shot out of a wheelchair lying dead in the street, wounded Baathists getting first aid from the Kurds, and a heartbreaking picture of a young boy holding a sign asking, WHERE IS MY SISTER?

From the photo rooms, the museum’s guide, Khalil Ali Mustafa, takes visitors to the rooms where the real business of the prison went on. They’re surprisingly small: two 20-by-12-foot cells, on either side of a short hall leading to two toilets, together housed up to 120 prisoners on an average day. From the cells, the prisoners could see, down another short hall, the “relaxation post,” where prisoners fresh from torture were tied to a wall and kicked, pummeled, and insulted by the guards who walked by.

There are also two torture rooms, each about 10 by 15 feet, and each with a beam, suspended from the ceiling, to which are attached several meat hooks. From these hooks, prisoners were hung by their wrists tied behind the back: the effect was to dislocate the shoulders and cause slow and agonizing suffocation while the rest of the body was beaten with wire whips and shocked by a generator attached to the nipples and genitals. The shock machine and the whips are on display. Between the two torture rooms is a smaller “listening room,” where the next victim would be held for hours to listen to the screams and contemplate what he would soon endure. Many cracked and talked just from that pressure. And children were among the tortured, to extort information from their horrified mothers. Down another hall is a long line of isolation cells, roughly four by five feet, where particularly important prisoners were kept for up to six months of repeated torture sessions. Wires once attached to small microphones run outside the cells.

The cells’ walls are scratched with the names of prisoners who tried to leave some vestige of their existence. In one is a small statue of a teacher, Ma Masta Ahmad, who after six months of confinement and torture was subjected to 24 hours of hanging by his wrists. To end this torment he told everything he knew—and then was shot. On the wall is etched his pathetic little calendar, which he kept to keep some contact with an outside world that he never saw again. Of the thousands of men, women, and children who came through the doors of the Red Museum, almost none came out alive. Those who did not perish were sent to Abu Ghraib in Baghdad to be hanged.

In the basement of the Red Museum, a dark and dank and stinking place, is a small room with pictures of the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja. Many in the West are familiar with the photo of a man lying prone on the threshold of a house, on top of a small child whom he tried to shield from the gas. It’s heartbreaking, to be sure, but it’s almost abstract and thus suitable for newspaper display. I doubt that many of the photos in the Red Museum have been seen in the West, because they’re so gruesome as to turn the stomach of anyone who sees them. The one I found most disturbing was a close-up of a little girl, maybe six or seven years old. Her ashen white face is surrounded by brownish hair and her mouth is frozen in a ghoulish grin. Her eyes are open, but are so crossed as to make her look like a little fiend from hell. The gas not only killed her; it turned her corpse into what looked like a monster.

A few weeks later, I went to Halabja with a young woman and her husband. Both were seven when the city was gassed. We first stopped at the memorial building on the edge of the city. The memorial was ransacked in 2006 and is still a mess. Angry Halabja citizens attacked it in protest against government indifference. They had a point: Halabja is drab and sad and has few paved streets. It’s a monument to government neglect as well as to the misery of the Anfal campaign.

In the city center is an old graveyard surrounded by a fence, on which a sign reads: BAATH NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER. Amid the old single graves are three new mass graves in which about 3,000 victims of the attack are interred. Beyond them is an expanse of small headstones, each representing an entire family. The young woman accompanying me said that she was lucky that her father, a peshmerga—a rebel fighter, one of “those who confront death”—had told her and her mother to leave the city because an attack was sure to come. They fled to one of the vast, squalid refugee camps in Iran and after six months made their way back to Suli. Her father was gassed and eventually died of the effects. Her brother was arrested, tortured, and executed. Her husband, too, remembers clinging to his mother’s dress as they fled into the mountains to escape the gas. At one point they had to choose between paths to two separate villages. Both villages were bombed by gas, but the bomb hitting the village they chose turned out to be a dud. It’s sheer luck that he’s alive. The young woman’s brother did not live to see this horror. In 1981, she told me, at the age of 14, he was murdered by his best friend, also 14 but even at that age a Baathist agent.

The mountains above Halabja are dotted with empty villages, monuments, and mass graves, some barely large enough for a few families, one the size of a football field. Many small mass graves lie near two natural springs whose water was poisoned by the gas, instantly killing those who drank it. On the day I visited, throngs of picnickers were enjoying their Friday in the country, barbecuing, playing music, and dancing. It was hard to believe that in these now serene mountains, old men, women, and children were once mowed down by helicopter gunships and chemical bombs.

In politics, the legacy of suffering has made the Kurds hard. They trust no one, look out for themselves, and engage in double-dealing, often to the chagrin of their friends in America and elsewhere. But apart from politics, Kurdish civil society is healing, and the Kurds are getting over the experience of being victims. In fact, one problem in Suli, notes Judith Bass, a Johns Hopkins professor of public health working here with the Heartland Alliance’s Victims of Torture Project (which provides mental health services), is that the victims, especially disabled and shell-shocked peshmerga, feel that they’re being forgotten as the Kurds get on with making the most of their freedom. Few citizens of Suli visit the Red Museum. When they go to the silent graves of their murdered beloved, they go to picnic and dance—to celebrate life and freedom.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought. He thanks Kamal Osman Kaķi, who served as translator at the Red Museum.

Maybe There's Something To This al Qaeda Thing After All

2009-05-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

This past week, with relatively little fanfare or notice, President Obama made what should have been a startling revelation. In stark opposition to his campaign promises and actions in the early days of his presidency, officials in the Obama administration announced that the president is likely to revive the use of military tribunals to prosecute suspected members of al Qaeda and other Guantanamo detainees. According to the New York Times:

Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.

...

It is not clear how many of the remaining 241 detainees are likely to be prosecuted. The four-month suspension of military commission proceedings Mr. Obama ordered is to end May 20. As a result, administration officials are considering whether to ask military judges at Guantánamo for an additional delay. In making such a request, administration lawyers might outline their proposed changes.

In recent days, senior administration officials have hinted publicly that commissions were far from dead, yet offered no specifics and their comments drew little attention. In Congressional testimony on Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said, “The commissions are still very much on the table.”

In a news conference this week, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. emphasized that if the administration did use military commissions, the rules must give detainees “a maximum amount of due process.”
But, speaking of detainees whom American officials have accused of involvement in major terrorist plots, Mr. Holder added, “It may be difficult for some of those high-value detainees to be tried in a normal federal court.”

As I see it, there are three possible explanations for this. First, that Obama is the same kind of rights-trashing, law-disrespecting monster that Bush was. Second, that Obama is simply hoarding presidential power now that he is president and is reluctant to give up any power that he has a right to exercise. Third, that al Qaeda represents a real threat to the United States, which Obama, now that he has unfettered access to US intelligence agencies, has come to realize and that giving civilian legal protections to the most dangerous detainees does, in fact (as Bush claimed it did) threaten the national security of the country.

I think we can discard the first possibility without much discussion. The second probably plays some part in this, but any decision to revive military tribunals is most likely a result of the third. Al Qaeda is a serious threat to this country. How much of a threat is certainly up for debate, but when we debate the question we must realize the limits to our knowledge. We do not know how many plots have been foiled, how many al Qaeda cells have been infiltrated, how much the government knows, and how dangerous al Qaeda still is. We can speculate and debate these questions, but we simply cannot know the answers in the same way that our governing officials can.

Since coming to office, Obama has maintained the policy of extraordinary rendition and is now considering the military tribunals which he once voted against as a senator. Perhaps this tells us he's simply a power-coveting politican; but it also might tell us that the threat to our country is a serious one that requires extraordinary measures to combat.

Restoring the Balance: War Powers in an Age of Terror

2009-05-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

My book, forthcoming from Praeger Security International, is now up on Amazon. Check it out here: Restoring the Balance: War Powers in an Age of Terror.

Iraq Journal, Part Three

2009-04-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

[City Journal has published the second dispatch from my father on living and teaching in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimani. You can read his first dispatch here, and one from my mother on visiting Halabja here.]

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Two
Socialism on top, Milton Friedman on the bottom
22 April 2009

Editors’ note: This is the second in a series of dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq–Sulaimani. Read the first installment here.

I was born with the olfactory powers of a bloodhound, which is a blessing at fine restaurants but not in the city of Sulaimani, or Suli, in Iraqi Kurdistan. On first entering my apartment here, I knew that my palate, tongue, and nose were under assault from petroleum molecules—but I didn’t know why, since there’s no oil drilling nearby. It turns out that every house, business, and hotel has an ample, and often leaky, supply of diesel fuel in the basement. That’s because there’s hardly a house or business in Suli that doesn’t have a diesel-powered generator just outside the door. And that’s because electricity is available from the main grid only six or eight hours per day.

Water, too, is intermittent, which explains why for every private generator, there’s also a private water tank. The water is used for plants and for washing cars, clothes, and people, but not much for human consumption. Few people drink it, and it’s not wise to open your mouth in the shower or brush your teeth with water from the tap. A visit to the humblest and cheapest restaurant begins with a sealed, square plastic container of water plopped down in front of you, usually free of charge. In the bazaar are pyramids of sheep’s heads; outside the bazaar, you can’t walk a block without encountering giant pyramids of 20-liter bottles of potable water.

The reason for the city’s strange amalgam of official grids and unofficial networks is that Sulaimani Province is governed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a proud member of the Socialist International. The PUK owns half of the city and employs half of its people. American readers won’t be surprised that a sprawling, one-party socialist government is not a paragon of efficiency, transparency, and responsiveness to public needs—especially in a place like Kurdistan. After Saddam’s genocidal Anfal Campaign against Kurdish rebels in 1988, and the establishment of the no-fly zone after the Gulf War in 1991, the two Iraqi Kurdish political parties—the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdish Democratic Party, led by Masoud Barzani—fought a nasty civil war. Adding to the cost of this internal chaos, which lasted from 1994 to 1998, were the sanctions that strangled Iraq, and particularly Suli, until the fall of Saddam in 2003. So the Kurds couldn’t buckle down to rebuilding their ravaged land until just six years ago.

Fortunately, the two parties have patched up their differences. The KDP (whose stronghold is in the northern province of Erbil) and the PUK in Suli have brought Kurdistan to a vague but real enough status as a quasi-independent region within a federal Iraq. They’ve even become somewhat embarrassed about their weakness on civil liberties, especially in more free-thinking and liberal Suli—where independent women’s groups have taken on the hot-button issue of violence against women, and where a high school student recently organized a seminar on child abuse. The two parties have, in short, provided a level of personal security, freedom, and religious toleration unknown in the rest of post-Baathist Iraq. True, it’s under the socialist PUK that the electricity runs only six hours per day and the water intermittently. Yet this administrative inefficiency hasn’t resulted in economic paralysis, because while a socialist government rules from above in Suli, the principles of Milton Friedman flourish underneath.

The Kurds have used their share of Iraq’s oil money to lure massive foreign investments. But at least in Suli, they haven’t succumbed to the Middle East’s stultifying economic and psychological dependence on that money. I think that’s because with so much inefficiency at the top, the regular citizens of Suli fend for themselves. Hence the spontaneous and private systems that electrify and water the city. Hence the private garbage collectors who walk the city collecting trash (though a lot of it gets deposited in the vacant lot next to my building) and the private propane sellers who crisscross the city to help people cook.

The city also hums with small-scale building, both residential and commercial, and shopping malls and start-up businesses—for instance, the Melody Café, a sleek espresso and gelato establishment in my building. Recently, two musicians, a Kurdish violinist and a Russian pianist, played classical music at the Melody to the beaming delight of the packed Kurdish house. The central street running to the sprawling bazaar is a free-enterprise zone—established by the enlightened free-market liberal Barham Salih, deputy secretary-general of the PUK and deputy prime minister of Iraq—with few public buildings and no elaborate rules governing how new businesses may start. Few rules, in fact, govern the building of anything in the city. Half the dust in Suli gets blown in from the south, but the other half is produced by all the digging and grinding and sanding of ubiquitous construction.

The result of all this vigorous private enterprise is that Kurdistan, the poorest part of Iraq before the war, now enjoys the highest standard of living in the country. If the government here worked better, in fact, I think the citizens of Suli would be slower to develop their nascent individualism, capitalism, and vibrant civic culture. Few of them probably realize that they are slowly acquiring the habits of entrepreneurial capitalism: do for oneself; take risks and strive to get richer; don’t dwell on the past; and when things go badly—and do they ever know what “badly” can mean—pick yourself up, don’t worry about honor, and get on with life.

The Milton Friedman bottom of Suli is causing problems for the socialist top. Recent polls show that almost half of the electorate is tired of government inefficiency and the slow pace of infrastructure construction, and the Kurdistan Islamic Union is licking its lips in anticipation of the next elections. It’s a joke when the disgruntled citizens of Bologna, Italy, vote in protest for Communists. It won’t be a joke if the Kurds turn in protest to the KIU and other Islamic parties.

The PUK knows this, and some of its members also know that it can’t rest on its laurels for having fought Saddam. There are rumblings in the party’s liberal and reformist elements. It’s my hope that in the long run, liberal, free-market reformers will come out on top. And they had better, because Kurdistan is caught between a Turkish rock and a Baghdadi hard place. It’ll take cool heads—who understand that Kurdish independence is fragile and that Iraqi oil is too valuable a resource to be lost pursuing nationalist dreams—to navigate the shoals of a workable Iraqi federalism.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought.

Iraq Journal, Part Two

2009-04-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

[This is the second in a series of posts about goings-on in Iraq. In the first, my father who is teaching at the American University in Iraq - Sulaimani wrote about getting to the Kurdish north. In this post, my mother, who is visiting my father in Iraq for a few weeks, writes about a trip to Halabja.]

Another fascinating and very stimulating weekend. (And did I mention that the weekends are Friday (the holy day) and Saturday.) Both Friday and Saturday we were taken in to the mountains surrounding Suli, first in the east and then in the west. The Kurds are fond of saying that "the mountains are our only friends" and that "Saddam had tanks but we had the mountains." The mountains surrounding Suli are different than any I've seen but Jerry compares them to the Grand Tetons. They rise sharply up from the valley without the surrounding foothills that are more typical in the US. And they vary dramatically in type from bare and rocky, to sandy with desert type plants, to covered with lush green

On Friday, a staff member at AUIS and her husband took us to Halabja, the town in the eastern mountains very close to the Iranian border where they were born and raised. Mention Halabja to any Kurd and they immediately know what it means and what you are going to see. Halabja is to the Kurds what the Holocaust is to Jews. It's the town that Saddam destroyed by chemical bombs, killing 5,000 men, women, and children. Visiting Halabja with Kurds, who are now in their 20s but were children of around 7 at the time of the attack, was a moving experience. Both had lost many friends and family members as well as having their homes destroyed; both had parents blinded for several weeks by the chemicals. Sham had never before visited the memorial because she feared the photos of those burned or killed would be too upsetting. Her husband recounted fleeing in fear, clinging to his mother's skirt. He took us to the path in the mountains on which, if they had chosen it, they would have died along with countless others who are now buried in mass graves that dot the hillside. He showed us the path they took instead to a village which though also hit by a chemical bomb, luckily, did not explode. Standing in the mountains, surrounded by wildflowers, and seeing families picnic at the cemeteries and mass graves it's difficult to imagine the horror which happened only 20 years ago.

Saturday, Dildar, a woman I was introduced to, took me to visit the Women's Commission, an organization which collects statistics, educates, and advocates on behalf of women. Although the women of Suli are relatively modern, women in the small villages still live lives of second class citizens. Honor killings still occur. Female circumcision is common. And few women are allowed to own property, receive their husband's pensions if they are widowed, or to withdraw money from bank accounts. Even in Suli, girls do not have the same freedoms as boys. The girls at the high school where I have been volunteering complain they are not allowed to go out with friends, they certainly can not have boys visit their homes, and many families prize boy children more than girls.

After an elaborate Kurdish lunch at the home of a Kurdish Member of Parliament with enough food to feed 30 people, Dildar also took Jerry and me for a drive in to the mountains (with a driver and uniformed guard carrying an M16 rifle!) She showed us the village and huts where she and her husband had been in hiding with other members of the pesh murga during the fighting with Saddam. She related stories of horror: bombing of the villages, climbing the mountains under sniper fire, having 3 miscarriages from effects of chemical weapons.

Again this weekend, Jerry and I were in awe of the stories of loss, heroism, and personal bravery that we heard. When we become frustrated with the construction debris, the dirtiness, and the inefficiencies of basic services, we try to remember how far Kurdistan has come in the brief time they have been at peace. We also once again were impressed by the warmth and hospitality of the Kurdish people. Sham's family in Halabja prepared a huge feast for us, family members from all over the city came to meet us and show us their children, and then they sent us home with a big bag of home-made bread. Shopkeepers, cab drivers, and others tell us over and over how much they love America. They are anxious that their stories are heard in the West.

Legalizing Torture? Part II: The 30 May 2005 Bradbury Memo

2009-04-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

[This is the secondin a series of posts analyzing the recently released Office of Legal Counsel memos discussing the legality of proposed coercive interrogation methods to be used against suspected members of al Qaeda. The second memo to be considered is the May 30, 2005 memo from Steven Bradbury to John Rizzo, the Senior Deputy General Counsel of the CIA, entitled Re: Application of United States Obligations Under Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture to Certain Techniques that May Be Used in the Interrogiation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees. Part One of the memo is here; Part Two is here.]

I wrote in Part One of this series that it seems unlikely that there are grounds for criminal prosecutions in the August 1, 2002 memo. However, I'm not so sure that can be said for the May 30, 2005 memo. In this one, Steven Bradbury was advising the CIA on the obligations of the US under the Convention Against Torture and specifically how those obligations impacted the use of certain coercive interrogation techniques. Thus this memo is very detailed about the use of these techniques, as it seeks to determine whether they fall afoul of international law.

There's a lot of stuff in this memo...but I want to focus on the question of waterboarding, as that seems to be the most controversial. Page 15 of the memo clearly spells out the US policies governing the use of the waterboard:

The waterboard may be authorized for, at most, one 30 day period, during which the technique can actually applied on no more than five days...Further, there can be no more than two sessions in any 24-hour period. Each session--the time during which the detainee is strapped to the waterboard--lasts no more than two hours. There may be at most six applications of water lasting 10 seconds or longer during any session, and water may be applied for a total of no more than 12 minutes during any 24-hour period.

However, on page 37, we read this shocking revelation:

The CIA used the waterboard "at least 83 times during August 2002" in the interrogation of Zubaydah, IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed).

If you go back and do the math on the instructions from p. 15, the rules limit the use of the waterboard to no more than 60 times per month (five days per month, two sessions per day, six applications of water during each session; 5x2x6=60). And yet, KSM was waterboarded 183 times.

The general standard that Bradbury applies throughout this memo is whether the action in question "shocks the conscience" and he eventually concludes, on p. 38, that "the CIA interrogation techniques, either their careful screening procedures and medical monitoring, do not 'shock the conscience.'" Back on p. 37, he argued that "the CIA usses enhanced techniques only to the extent reasonably believed necessary to obtain the information and takes great care to avoid inflicting severe pain or suffering or any lasting or unnecessary harm. In short, the CIA's program is designed to subject detainees to no more duress than is justified by the Government's interest in protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks."

Perhaps. But then what explains why KSM was waterboard 123 times beyond the established limit? That certainly doesn't square with the previously made claim that KSM only held out for 35 seconds during his waterboarding. So, even if the use of waterboarding is acceptable under US law, what happens when those laws themselves are broken? If waterboarding does, as Bybee noted in the 2002 memo, likely cause a fear of imminent death, using such a technique 200% more than is allowable under the law would certainly seem to shock the conscience. It is odd indeed that Bradbury mentions the number of times both detainees were waterboarded but doesn't account for the actions in any way.

This memo does seem to argue for criminal behavior, most likely on the part of the interrogators, and perhaps the higher-ups who knew of the actions and did nothing. This is still not an argument that the techniques were, if used according to the rules, torture or that the US was wrong to use these techniques. It certainly does point out the dangers in walking the fine line between coercive interrogation and torture. Given the fineness of the line and the paramount importance of legal definitions in this instance, if waterboarding was to be used it have been used within whatever legal framework was created to justify and bound its legality. When that line is crossed, the action moves into torture.

[I'll discuss the rest of this memo as well as the others later.]

What the War in Afghanistan Is Really Like

2009-04-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

Today's New York Times has one of the most incredible stories I've ever read. It is an account of the ambush of a Taliban column by a patrol from the second platoon of Company B, First Battalion, 26th Infantry of the US Army. It is the most detailed account of war I've seen in a newspaper, and a testament to the bravery, skill, and fortitude of the men and women who volunteer to serve our nation in the armed forces, risking their lives and being asked to kill on behalf of our security as well as the security of the poor people of Afghanistan. An excerpt:

The soldiers waited. The rules of the ambush were long ago drilled into them: no one can move, and no one can fire until the patrol leader gives the order. Then everyone must fire at once.

The third Taliban fighter in the column switched on a flashlight, the soldiers said, and quickly switched it off. About 50 yards separated the two sides, but Lieutenant Smith did not want to start shooting too soon, he said, “because if too many lived then we’d be up there fighting them all night.”

He let the Taliban column continue on. The soldiers trained their weapons’ infrared lasers, which are visible only with night-vision equipment, on the fighters as they drew closer. The lasers mark the path a bullet will fly.

The lead fighter had almost reached the platoon when Pvt. First Class Troy Pacini-Harvey, 19, his laser trained on the lead man’s forehead, moved his rifle’s selector lever from safe to semi-automatic. It made a barely audible click. The Taliban fighter froze. He was six feet away.

Lieutenant Smith was new to the platoon. This was his fourth patrol. He was in a situation that every infantry lieutenant trains for, but almost no infantry lieutenant ever sees. “Fire,” he said, softly into the radio. “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
The platoon’s frontage exploded with noise and flashes of light as soldiers fired. Bullets struck all of the lead Taliban fighters, the soldiers said. The first Afghans fell where they were hit, not managing to fire a single shot.

Bravo to our men and women in uniform.

Legalizing Torture? Part I: The 2002 Bybee Memo

2009-04-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

[This is the first in a series of posts analyzing the recently released Office of Legal Counsel memos discussing the legality of proposed coercive interrogation methods to be used against suspected members of al Qaeda. The first memo to be considered is the August 1, 2002 memo from Jay Bybee to John Rizzo, the acting General Counsel of the CIA, entitled Interrogation of al Qaeda Operative.]

When the CIA found itself holding Abu Zubaydah, it believed that it was holding "one of the highest ranking members of the al Qaeda organization." According to the memo, "the interrogation team is certain that he has additional information that he refuses to divulge. Specifically, he is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United Stares or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas." To find out what Zubaydah knew, the CIA requested to expand the repertoire of interrogation techniques available to it. Specifically, the CIA asked to be able to use the following 10 techniques: "(l) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box, and (10) the waterboard." The report goes on to specifically detail how each technique would be used. For example, here's the description of "walling":

For walling, a flexible false wall will be constructed. The individual is placed with his heels touching the wall. The interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall. It is the individual's shoulder blades that hit the wall. During this motion, the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a c-collar effect to help prevent whiplash. To further reduce the probability of injury, the individual is allowed to rebound from the flexible wall. You have orally informed us that the false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock or surprise the individual. In part, the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action.

After describing all of the requested techniques, the memo then launches into a discussion of the effect of these techniques on individuals subjected to them as part of the military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training. "Of the 26,829 students trained from 1992 through 2001 in the Air Force SERE training, 4.3 percent of those students had contact with psychology services. Of those 4.3 percent, only 3.2 percent were pulled from the program for psychological reasons. Thus, out of the students trained overall, only 0.14 percent were pulled from the program for psychological reasons." These numbers reflect people who were subjected to all of the requested techniques except for insects in the confinement box and the waterboard. Regarding the waterboard, the memo continues,

your on-site psychologists, who have extensive experience with the use of the waterboard in Navy training, have not encountered any significant long-term mental health consequences from its use. Your on-site psychologists have also indicated that JPRA has likewise not reported any significant long-term mental health consequences from the use of the waterboard. You have informed us that other services ceased use of the waterboard because it was so successful as an interrogation technique, but not because of any concerns over any harm, physical or mental, caused by it. It was almost 100 percent effective in producing cooperation among the trainees. [REDACTED] also indicated that he had observed the use of the waterboard in Navy training some ten to twelve times. Each time it resulted in cooperation but it did not result in any physical harm to the student.

In short, the memo concludes that based on the experience of those undergoing these techniques in SERE, there is no indication that these measures will cause any long-term mental or physical harm.

Bybee then turns to US law on torture: Section 2340A of the US code, which makes it illegal for any US citizen to engage in torture outside of the US. Section 2340(1) then defines torture thusly:

"torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.

In turn, Section 2340(2) reads:

"severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (C) the threat of imminent death; or (D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality

Thus, Bybee concludes, violating the Section 2340A "requires a showing that: (1) the torture occurred outside the United States; (2) the defendant acted under the color of law; (3) the victim was within the defendant's custody or control; (4) the defendant specifically intended to inflict severe pain or suffering; and (5) that the acted inflicted severe pain or suffering." The memo then proceeds to argue that none of the techniques in question causes "severe pain or suffering." Briefly, the OLC has concluded elsewhere that "'severe pain' within the meaning of Section 2340 is pain that is difficult for the individual to endure and is of an intensity akin to the pain accompanying serious physical injury." The memo also concludes that none of the techniques is likely to cause severe mental pain or suffering either, with two possible exceptions. Given Zubaydah's professed fear of insects (which is the rationale for putting insects in the confinement box with him), it could cause him severe mental pain or suffering if Zubaydah's believes that the insect could sting him and cause injury or death. Thus, the interrogators must either tell Zubaydah that the insect's sting (the CIA says that while it intends to tell Zubaydah that the insect is a stinging one, it intends to put a non-stinging insect in the box) cannot produce severe pain or death or should not tell him that the insect can sting at all. It also notes that "although the waterboard constitutes a tbreat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result to violate the statutory prohibition on infliction of severe mental pain or suffering," which is turn defined as "mental harm lasting months or years."

Bybee does note that "under certain circumstances - for example, rapid escalation in the use of these techniques culminating in the waterboard (which we acknowledge constitutes a threat of imminent death) accompanied by verbal, or other suggestions that physical violence will follow - might cause a reasonable person to believe that they are faced with such a threat." Thus, the OLC is uncertain whether such a course would constitute a violation of the laws prohibiting torture. However, even if such circumstances occurred, to be considered torture and thus a violation of Section 2340A, the act must be committed with a specific intent to cause severe physcial or mental harm and must in fact cause severe physical or mental harm. If the interrogators do not have specific intent, there can be no torture.

Now, on to the analysis. First, this is the first chronologically of the memos...many of the most controversial techniques -- such as dousing a subject with cold water and forced nudity -- are not discussed in here, and won't be until 2005. Second, this is a serious attempt to define the boundaries of the law. While it may seem like legalistic parsing or hair splitting, let's not forget that there is, in fact, a serious threat to the US. That does not in and of itself justify torture. It does, however, justify efforts to find the strongest techniques available to interrogate suspected terrorists that are legal under US law.

That said, it seems to me that there are several problems in the legal analysis. First, I'm not so sure how accurately one can draw comparisons between those subjected to these techniques in a SERE program to a detainee's experience. The SERE people know, no matter how brutal the things being done to them, that their tormentors are their compatriots and that there are limits to what will, in fact, be done. The suspected terrorist has no such reassurances. So, while the physical effects may be the same, it seems as if the mental effects would be much worse for the detainee. [Please note that I am not in any way miniziming the SERE experience...it just doesn't seem to be really comparable in a legal sense].

Second, the requirement of specific intent is troubling. If the intent of the interrogator conducting a waterboarding session is to cause an imminent fear of death, which the OLC admits waterboarding does, can the only thing keeping this from being torture that waterboarding doesn't leave any lasting mental pain? Christopher Hitchens notes that, after voluntarily undergoing waterboarding, he suffers from panic attacks and night terrors. That may not count as "severe" mental pain and suffering, but it's getting close. And if Zubaydah does have, as the CIA believes he does, a fear on insects, confining him in a box with an insect that he may believe will sting him also seems to be pushing the line of causing severe mental pain and suffering.

As I mentioned, this memo is perhaps the most reasonable of the four that have been released, and it still seems to push the boundaries, particularly with waterboarding. However, the real problems at this stage seem to lie in the legal defintion, not in the OLC's interpretation of that wording. The law does say that there must be specific intent to cause severe pain and suffering and the law does not define in any clear way what constitutes severe mental and physical pain and suffering. It is not surprising that the administration pushed the law as far as it could in its efforts to defend the nation.

It seems difficult to conclue, I think, at this point over this memo that there is grounds for prosecution of the purveyors of this legal advice. There is a serious attempt to stay within the bounds of the law, while defining the law as liberally as possible. That may be wrong, but it doesn't seem to be criminal. As I have said before, I put more blame at this point on Congress, which never saw fit to more tightly and clearly define the rules with which it sought to limit the power of the president. As Kenneth Anderson points out in a New York Times debate on the memos, many members of Congress clearly knew what was going on:

as the Washington Post reported in December, 2007:
Yet long before “waterboarding” entered the public discourse, the C.I.A. gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter.
Most prominent among those briefed on waterboarding was Nancy Pelosi. According to the Post’s interviews, members of the Congressional oversight committees understood that they had to weigh the limits of inhumane treatment of people known to have Al Qaeda connections against the threat of new attacks. They believed that these techniques struck the right balance in the circumstances. Yet I haven’t heard of any serious call for prosecuting Speaker Pelosi or any of her colleagues for complicity in torture.

Anderson goes on to note something I have called attention to several times; Congress still has not made waterboarding illegal or passed legislation specifically defining it as torture. If Congress really wants to ensure that waterboarding or other techniques are not used, it must pass a law making such actions illegal. The fact that it doesn't hints at two things: One, that there is in fact a broader consensus on the need for such programs than people will admit publicly, and that; Two, Congress really is the feckless body, unwilling to take responsibility for the defense of the state, that we think it is.

However, to foreshadow some of the subsequent memos, we see that first, the CIA doesn't use waterboarding in the same way it is used in the SERE program, further throwing into doubt the legal reasoning of the first Bybee memo. Second, we see introduced much more controversial techniques, such as forced nudity, dietary/caloric restriction, and dousing with cold water. We also see a recognition that many of these techniques are considered torture by the United States when used by other countries.

The New Torture Memos

2009-04-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Today, the Department of Justice released several memos from the Office of Legal Counsel on the use of and legality of coercive interrogation techniques and how they are to be interpreted given US laws prohibiting torture. The memos can be found here. All of the memos are, essentially, parsing the coercive techniques to determine whether the violate US domestic laws against torture as well as US obligations under the Convention Against Torture, which the US has signed and ratified.

I haven't yet read the memos, so I can't comment in detail on the legal analyses. But, they appear to be serious attempts to define what is and what is not torture. Critics aside, this is an important distinction. Not every coercive interrogation technique is torture, so to draw the line we need to be able to define what constitutes torture. And it's not as obvious at it might seem. For example, in Ireland v UK (1978) the European Court of Human Rights ruled that several coercive interrogation techniques, including wall standing, hooding, subjectin to noise, sleep deprivatin, deprivation of food and drink -- several of which are at issue in the OLC memos -- did not constitute torture, although they were "cruel, inhuman, and degrading." Thus, the need to determine a standard of what is coercive, even if cruel, and what is torture. That is what these memos appear to try to do. That is not to say that they do the task well, or even honestly. I can't say yet. But the task itself is a necessary one.

President Obama also announced today that he would not bring charges against CIA interrogators who relied on the OLC memos for guidance as to what policies could be legally used. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, "It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department." That does seem to leave the door open to prosecuting those responsible for the legal opinions. But that remains to be seen.

Once I've read the memos, I'll comment on them.

Amnesty in Zimbabwe

2009-04-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

The New York Times is reporting that top officials of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in Zimbabwe, fearing what will happen now that the opposition party is in the government, are kidnapping and torturing members of the opposition party in an effort to extract promises of amnesty from them. According to the Times:

Didymus Mutasa, who served as Mr. Mugabe’s minister for national security until the power-sharing deal went into effect, acknowledged that some senior officials in his party might be worried about prosecution.
Had the party floated the idea of an amnesty? he was asked. “Perhaps,” he said.

Were abductions used to gain leverage for amnesty? “There could have been something like that,” he said, “but how am I to know?”

The crimes that have been committed under Mugabe's government are unquestionably horrible, and the victims most certainly deserve justice. The Times provides a short accounting:

The crimes committed to entrench Mr. Mugabe’s rule date back to the 1980s, when thousands of civilians from Zimbabwe’s Ndebele minority in Matabeleland were killed by the notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Army brigade, according to historians.

Among the Ndebele, the tears of the living must be shed to release the souls of the dead. But the Fifth Brigade insisted that there be no mourning for those they killed, and in some cases shot family members because they wept, according to “Breaking the Silence,” a 1997 investigation based on the testimonies of more than 1,000 witnesses.

Other political crimes include widespread attacks on the opposition in 2000, 2002 and 2005, and most gruesomely last year. Beyond that, a vast 2005 slum clearance effort known as Operation Murambatsvina, or Get Rid of the Filth, drove 700,000 people in opposition bastions from their homes.

Last year, close to 200 people were killed, mostly before the June presidential runoff between Mr. Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and thousands were tortured in state-sponsored attacks, but so far no one has been prosecuted, according to a State Department human rights report released in February.
Mr. Mugabe’s party fears that even more damning evidence will be unearthed.

This doesn't even include the horrors that Mugabe has unleashed on his people through his misrule: driving the country into bankruptcy, destroying Zimbabwe's agricultural capacity, collapsing the state's educational and health care systems, and so on.

So, justice is clearly due. But what kind of justice? Setting aside the coercion, should Mugabe and his cronies be given amnesty for their actions? Is getting the ZANU-PF out of power more important than punishing its leaders and members for their actions?

That decision rests, as it shoud, with the peopel of Zimbabwe. Different countries have transitioned through their difficult pasts in different ways. South Africa effectively granted amnesty through its Truth and Reconciliation Committee; Peru just recently tried and convicted its former president for crimes committed during its struggle against Marxist rebels. There are powerful arguments supporting each path.

Still, I would hope to see Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change do what is best for the country, which would be to get Mugabe and the ZANU-PF out of power. Hopefully, the MDC can resist the campaign of coercion being unleashed against it. In its place, the MDC should offer a broad amnesty, up to and including Robert Mugabe himself, in exchange for a full transfer of power to the MDC, which in all likelihood is the rightful ruling party. The amnesty should ensure that no one guilty of the crimes in question can hold political office in Zimbabwe again and that, as in South Africa, a full accounting of crimes is necessary to be granted amnesty. If such a deal can be reached, it should be taken. Anything less would be a true travesty of justice.

Energy and the Defense Department

2009-04-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Kevin Billings, an alumnus of Puget Sound and currently the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment & Logistics was interviewed for a new blog focusing on issues of energy and the Department of Defense. It's an interesting blog for anyone who cares about issues of future energy, and specifically as they interact with issues of national security. Here's the interview:

April 2009 Update from Air Force's Energy Chief
Kevin Billings shared a few minutes today, responding to three status questions I had queued up for him on: 1) the synth fuel initiative, 2) adoption of energy metrics, and 3) the Air Force's take on smart and micro grids. Here, without much embellishment, are his updates:

1) Synthetic Fuels - Certification of USAF's current inventory to run on a 50/50 natural gas-derived fuel/J-P8 blend is on or ahead of schedule. Other details include:
More focus coming up on bio fuels
Will down select to 1 or 2 bio fuel blends and begin new engine cert process for them
In short, USAF will be ready for its 2016 goal of using 50% alternative fuels, and is thereby making a market for these fuels. But the big question is: will industry be ready to provide new fuels in sufficient quantities?

2) Energy Metrics - Alas, Billings noted that the Energy Efficiency KPP would have been used extensively in Future/Next Gen Long Range Bomber, which Secretary Gates just recommended for deletion. But he said that USAF's acquisition arm is taking the FBCF and Energy Efficiency KPP very seriously. (I should be able to report more on that in the future.)

3) Air Force Smart / Micro Grids - According to Billings, while still in embryonic stages, new grid technologies and processes are at the forefront of USAF thinking. The primary driver is mitigation of the risk posed by the brittle national grid. The task re the smart grid is to work with utility providers to coordinate and collaborate on bringing smart sensors and other energy management capabilities on base to capture savings. The micro grid concept applies when thinking about bases as power islands, being able to run their own critical mission systems during local or regional blackouts. One of the lead agencies he referenced is the civil engineering team, AFCESA, at Tyndall AFB in Florida.

A detail I especially liked was Billings referring to the towns that host USAF bases as "community partners." He's interested in seeing if, should local blackouts occur, USAF bases could provide surplus power for critical community services. Wouldn't that be something ... something great.

What is China (and Russia) Doing?

2009-04-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote a few days ago about how the UN's response to the North Korean launch of a missile/satellite would be vital in determining how the US deals with the UN and multilateralism more generally in the future. Specifically, I wrote that:

If China, Russia, and the other members of the UN truly wish to see the US restrain itself, follow international law, and respect the UN, the Security Council, and other international institutions, those institutions must demonstrate the ability to deal with security issues such as North Korea, a relatively easy case given the coincidence of interests between the major players (no one, especially not China, wants to see a nuclear DPRK).

Well, China and Russia don't seem to be listening to me. The UN Security Council met yesterday, but came to no agreement about what to do regarding North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. China and Russia both expressed skepticism about the need for increasing sanctions on North Korea and opposed a US-Japanese resolution to punish the DPRK. UN insiders are reporting that Russian and Chinese opposition is so strong that "the United States and Japan might have to accept a non-binding warning statement from the council instead of a legally binding resolution." Meanwhile, China has advanced weak resolution that prompted one US official to comment that "The Chinese have come up with a completely watered down text which is unacceptable to us. It's not even worth discussing."

While I am not in any way surprised at the UN's complete inability to deal with issues of international security, I must admit I do not understand the strategic thinking of Russia and China here. President Obama has expressed his interest in more multilateral solutions as compared to President Bush, and sought to use the UN to deal with North Korea. Furthermore, neither Russia nor China has an interest in seeing North Korea proliferate. China in particular needs to worry about this, especially as North Korean proliferation may in turn drive Japan to develop a nuclear capability, or at the very least increase its ability for power projection.

Given that neither Russia nor China cares all that much about North Korea, given that they could have taken this opportunity as a chance to demonstrate that their preferred multilateral forum -- the UN Security Council -- is the proper place to deal with such issues and does have the capability to do so, given that the potential responses to North Korean proliferation are not in their interest, why would China and Russia be so unwilling to impose increased sanctions on North Korea for its flagrant violation of international law? I must admit I do not understand the strategic thinking here. The outcome of this intransigence is likely to demonstrate to Obama what President Bush knew: the multilateralism is not an end unto itself and that the UN cannot be relied upon to deal with issues that threaten American national security. Combine that with the regional destabilizing that will accompany North Korean proliferation and the potential for Japanese proliferation in turn, and it seems that China and Russia have made a colossal blunder here.

Iraq Journal, Part One

2009-04-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

My father, Jerry Weinberger, a professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University, is currently in Iraq. He is spending the spring teaching politics at the American University of Iraq, which is located in Sulaimani in the Kurdish north. Recently, he has been writing for City Journal, and will be chronicling his time in Iraq in a series of articles. The first has just been published...

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part One
My arrival in Sulaimani, Kurdistan
2 April 2009

Editors’ note: This is the first of several dispatches from Kurdistan, where the author is spending four months consulting for the American University in Iraq-Sulaimani.

My electronic plane ticket directed me to the “Azmar Air” counter at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. From there I’d fly to Sulaimani (the Kurdish spelling of Sulaimaniya), the city in Sulaimani Province of the Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region. The problem: I couldn’t find the Azmar counter. The gentleman at the information booth informed me that I should go to the Atlasjet Office on the other side of the airport—a big disappointment since my two suitcases weighed a ton, and I was also lugging my computer bag and fumbling with my cane. There, though, the Atlasjet man told me that if I wanted to talk to someone from Azmar, a Kurdish airline, I should go back to the other side. Again, I walked crab-like across the airport, still finding no Azmar. Eventually, Atlasjet (a Turkish airline) took my Azmar e-ticket—Azmar, in fact, doesn’t exist at Ataturk Airport, which somebody should have told me at some point. I boarded and was on my way.

The Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, “founded” in 1991 when the Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein and were protected by a U.S. enforced no-fly zone, is the nation-state equivalent of Azmar Air: it’s an independent state that officially isn’t one. The Turks have been warming to their own Kurds of late—Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, for instance, wooed their votes in the recent election—and to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, too. Turkey’s National Security Council, the nation’s main political conduit of military influence, has recommended improving economic relations with “Northern Iraq.” The Kurds have reciprocated by claiming that they don’t support the murderous Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and would rather like a Turkish consulate in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil.

But in Turkey and in Washington, D.C., “Kurdistan” dare not speak its name. Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the region’s official ruling body, has complained that the Kurds love America but get no respect from Washington. In response, State Department spokesman Robert Wood in February wouldn’t even use the word “Kurds,” referring to them instead as “one of Iraq’s ethnic components.”

The Kurds are the largest ethnic group on earth that doesn’t have a state of its own. And they’re not just in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq. There are more Kurds in Eastern Turkey than in Iraq, and lots in bordering Iran and Syria as well. That’s why almost no one but the Kurds of Iraq refers to their region as Kurdistan, and why Kurdistan looks like a state and walks like a state, but no one will call it a state. And in my view, it’s likely that it can’t become a real state without the unraveling of Iraq and a consequent civil and regional war.

I got into Sulaimani, or Suli, at 3 a.m., in a jet-lagged daze. When the sun came up, I discovered that I’d landed in a totally different world. Suli is a far cry from Istanbul. My heart sank as I stepped outside to discover that my apartment building sat next to a garbage dump: piles of building debris and other trash and detritus covered the vacant lot next door, though gallant chickens pecked away at the rubble. Across the “street,” a building under construction looked like a concrete Erector Set joke: no way that the multi-storied pile of cinder blocks would not collapse. Down the rain-slick street ran muddy rivulets of water. I was glad I didn’t have to walk anywhere before my contact, driving a big SUV, picked me up. (Climbing into the vehicle, though, I did get a gob of yellow mud deposited on my pants.)

We drove through a warren of similar streets until we came to the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS): a single, large building surrounded by a high concrete wall. The SUV backed into a narrow gate and stopped while a soldier, AK-47 on his back, stuck a big mirror under the car and walked around. Just to make sure that I wasn’t riding in a bomb. I made my way to the office of my old friend, the provost, Josh Mitchell, who took over the job from another old friend, John Agresto, former president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe. Soon Josh had to rush off to speak with Barham Salih, Deputy Premier of Iraq, intellectual big-shot of the Progressive Union of Kurdistan party, and the driving force behind the new university. There was a personnel crisis in the PUK and, I assumed, it must have had implications for the university.

So I decided to stroll around the neighborhood and take some further measure of the city where I’d live for the next four months. My impression was again of a ramshackle mess. The streets are littered and smelly and crowded, with madly bustling traffic threatening to mow down walkers who mostly have to dart across streets without the aid of crosswalks or lights. The tiny, tumbled-down shops stand cheek-by-jowl, sidewalks start and stop, and you have to walk carefully because in Suli, most steps are irregular and uneven.

And then there are the guns. The AK-47 is as common as the ant in Iraq, and so, too, in Kurdistan. An armed soldier stands next to my apartment building 24/7. At lunch with some students I held my cane, which has a handle that could be taken for a butt, between my legs. One student asked why I had my gun with me, since they’re forbidden to bring theirs into the building. The demand for Western pistols is so great that the black-market price of a Glock 19 has tripled.

But it didn’t take me long to see that Suli is safe. It’s a lot like Israel, where it’s not unusual to see the man in front of you in line with a pistol stuck in his pants. The guns don’t denote internal tension or fear, but national pride and common vigilance against terror. The guard standing post outside my building is a young guy with a six-inch sword-tattoo on his arm, a nasty scar on his chin, and four missing teeth. He greets me: “Hello teesh,” and runs to shake my hand. The Kurds have learned, as New Yorkers did in the nineties, that security is the bedrock of a functioning (well, sort of functioning here) civil society.

Suli is a law-abiding town. Lose your wallet? Someone will call to return it with all the money. Washington, D.C. has more homeless beggars than I’ve seen in Suli, even in the bazaar, with its meandering streets and swarms of people walking and hawking and buying. I thought some boys were begging until I realized that they were selling plastic bags for shoppers. As I walked back, two drivers bumped into each other in the crazy-quilt traffic. Both stopped, inspected the small damage (one had to pull a bit at a bumper), and went their separate ways: no arguments, no shouting, and certainly no exchanges of lawyer information.

Sunday, March 8 was the Prophet’s birthday, so the university was closed on what would have been a normal business day. The holiday was quiet, though most business seemed to go on pretty much as usual. Little food markets and restaurants were open, and the propane-cooking-gas-canister guy passed down the street, a young boy perched atop the truck making the rhythmical banging that, when I first heard it, made me think that Suli has Hare Krishnas.

AUIS was closed the day before, too, which by contrast was filled with raucous festivities commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Kurdish uprising against Saddam—the Kurdish Fourth of July: beautiful girls decked out in colorful Kurdish garb, loudspeakers blaring, big crowds in social halls. As I walked in the swirl, I couldn’t go far without young men coming up to ask where I was from and shake my hand. “U.S./Washington D.C.” elicited replies such as: “America and Kurdistan good friends,” or “White House.” One young man even said: “Jack Bauer.” But invariably, they would ask: “How you like Suli?” while simply bursting with pride in their freedom and their city.

One doesn’t hear the words Insha’Allah (God willing) much here, at least as regards things that need doing. That’s not because Islam is unimportant to the Kurds; it is. But in Suli, people don’t much count on God to get things done. They do for themselves, which is why, for all its drabness and chaos, the city (or rather half of the city—more on this next time) works. I think that’s why its citizens love it so, and why it’s growing on me, too.

Jerry Weinberger is a professor of political science at Michigan State University, director of the LeFrak Forum at Michigan State, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought.

Yet Another Test That the UN Will Fail

2009-04-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

While many people have argued that the US should destroy the "satellite" that is about to be launched by North Korea, the Obama administration has backed away from any kind of aggressive position on the impending test. Rather, an anonymous US official at the G-20 summit stated today that the US will respond to any kind of launch by referring the matter to the UN. UN Security Council resolution 1718, passed in the wake of the North Korean nuclear "test" in October 2006, states that the North Korean nuclear program represents a "clear threat to international peace and security" and demands that North Korea not test any ballistic missiles and "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching." Even if, as North Korea claims, the impending launch is a satellite and not a ballistic missile, the technologies are so similar as to render the distinction meaningless and violate the resolution.

But what will happen if and when the US refers the matter to the UNSC? Most likely, not much. The UN may indeed pass more sanctions (1718 imposed a wide sanction regime, including bans on arms sales and luxury items), but past sanctions have seemed to have little effect on North Korea's behavior. Anything more serious than sanctions is likely to draw a Chinese veto.

The international community, and China in particular, should be very wary about obstructing the work of the UNSC or failing to seriously punish North Korea for it violation. The decision by the Obama administration to act through the offices of the UN rather than taking matters into its own hands represents a complete 180 from the policies of the Bush administration that have been so widely and roundly criticized. But if the UN fails to take meaningful action, why would the US continue to refer issues of national security to an impotent body? China has already proved willing to punish North Korea for such flagrant violations of international law and norms; China did vote for resolution 1718. If China, Russia, and the other members of the UN truly wish to see the US restrain itself, follow international law, and respect the UN, the Security Council, and other international institutions, those institutions must demonstrate the ability to deal with security issues such as North Korea, a relatively easy case given the coincidence of interests between the major players (no one, especially not China, wants to see a nuclear DPRK).

However, short-term political points scoring usually outweighs long-term strategies. The UN will, most likely, fail to respond to the North Korean test in any kind of meaningful way, leaving President Obama with exactly the same problem President Bush faced when considering what to do about Iraq.

Feaver on Afghanistan

2009-03-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

My former professor and dissertation adviser at Duke University, Peter Feaver, can be heard on NPR discussing whether the US is winning the war in Afghanistan. Highly recommended.

An Impending Disaster in Darfur

2009-03-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

Things are about to get worse in Darfur. A whole lot worse.

In the wake of his indictment by the International Criminal Court, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir has set about demonstrating to the international community that he will not be cowed by its action. First, Sudan ordered the 13 largest aid and relief organizations -- including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, CARE, and the International Rescue Committee -- working in Sudan out of the country. Bashir has also expressed his desire to have all international aid groups out of Darfur within a year. Then, Bashir openly flaunted the ICC warrant by traveling to Eritrea and Egypt. The visits are intended to make it clear that the ICC has no power to arrest Bashir unless states choose to do so themselves; the Arab League has rejected the ICC's call to arrest Bashir, opening the way for Bashir to attend the summit of the League in Qatar.

The ejection of the aid workers is, in the short term, of the gravest concern, as these groups provided 35% of Darfur's food distribution capability. In a piece in today's Washington Post, Michael Gerson recounts an interview with Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah, a physician and human rights advocate in Darfur, in which Abdallah warns that "People are likely to die very soon." In the absence of the aid groups, only 9% of the population of Darfur will have access to clean water, and a cholera or (perhaps and) a meningitis outbreak seems likely. With disease increasing and food supplies decreasing, the desperate Darfuris are likely to begin migrating to eastern Chad. Doing so, however, requires them to leave the relative safety of their refugee camps in order to cross more than 300 miles of desert, exposing themselves to attacks by janjaweed militia groups, dehydration, and starvation.

So, what is to be done? There are several options, none of which is particularly palatable. First, the international community could, for all intents and purposes, back down by blocking or suspending the ICC arrest warrant in hopes that Sudan would allow the aid groups back in. Second, pressure could be put on the member states of the Arab League to enforce the warrant, effectively blocking Bashir's ability to travel. Third, massive pressure could be put on Sudan (and by proxy, China) to allow the aid groups back in. Fourth, the international community could intervene, sending soldiers into the Darfur region to provide security, food, and aid. Finally, as is always an option, the international community can do nothing.

It's pretty clear that the international community has little stomach or will for an intervention. So that leaves a choice between where, how, and whether to apply pressure to reverse Bashir's decision and get the aid groups back in. Backing down in an entirely unacceptible option at this point. While many people, including myself, warned about issuing an arrest warrant, now that it has been issued, backing down would completely destroy any credibility that either the ICC or the international community has; it would also make it clear that international law can easily be hijacked by threatening one own people.

Doing nothing is the most likely option. Protestations and hand-wringing aside, the international community, and the US and the EU in particular, has never shown much interest in incurring any costs to help Darfur, or other African peoples being subjected to genocide. It will certainly be easy for President Obama to maintain the moral rhetoric of "never again" as all his predecssors have done while doing nothing. But that would be shameful, and ultimately counterproductive for American interests. The US does have an interest in stopping genocide, and that interest is the ideals that have made this country what it is: liberalism, human rights, natural law. That a state can be free to slaughter and uproot its own people in an age of American hegemony is an affront to all of these ideals and challenges American interests in a fundamental way. While the fate of the Fur may not threaten the US in as direct manner as a North Korean weapons program or international terrorism, the willingness of the US to abdicate its moral leadership on genocide and human rights undermines US power in a very real way.

So, then, where should the pressue be placed? Sudan has proven nearly impervious to international pressure, largely due to its protector on the Security Council, China, which has been willing to shield Sudan in exchange for access to Sudanese energy exports. It may be more fruitful to pressure China, which has in the past shown its willingess to help the US. But, given the situation in North Korea right now, the US may prefer to save its political capital with China for that.

That leaves pressuring the states of the Arab League. And here the US has a lot of possibilities. Many of these states, such as Egypt, are, essentially, US clients. Many others, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are highly dependent on the US for protection and economic support. The US should use whatever carrots it has to get the Arab League to apply pressure to Sudan.

But for what end? The pressure could be for one of two ends: To get the Arab League to promise to enforce the ICC warrant and arrest Bashir, or to get the League to lean on Sudan to readmit the aid groups. The first would ensure Sudan's isolation, but would also make it all but impossible for the aid groups to return. While the isolation might, eventually, force Sudan to comply with international demands on Darfur, that is a long-term option. The second option might solve the impending humanitarian crisis, but wouldn't increase the likelihood of a long-term solution.

While it might be desirable to pursue the first option, I'm skeptical about any future sustained international effort to help Darfur. Rather, the immediate priority should be to avert the coming disaster. The US, EU, and UN shoud begin exerting whatever pressure they can on the Arab League to, in turn, pressure Sudan to readmit the aid NGOs. Unless that happens, the world will once again sit back and watch the destruction of a people.

Trade Trouble Ahead

2009-03-18T15:18:00.001-07:00

I've written a few times about Obama's ambivalent-at-best position on trade, warning that Obama's poor choice of US Trade Representative and "re-open NAFTA", "Buy USA" and "protect labor standards" rhetoric threatened to ignite a trade war.

Well, today's Obama's choice for USTR, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, won approval from the Senate. Meanwhile, Mexico announced that it would impose $2.4 billion of tariffs on US goods "ranging from strawberries to Christmas trees" in retaliation for a US ban on Mexican trucks on American highways. The new tariffs, ranging from 10% to 40%, are Mexico's response to the scrapping by the US Congress of a program allowing Mexican trucks to haul goods inside the US, an action that Mexico deems a violation of NAFTA. Mexico has graciously exempted staple goods, such as rice, corn, wheat, and meat, from the tariffs so as not to raise consumer prices for people being pummeled by the economic crisis.

These two events are unrelated, but are also more than mere coincidence. How Obama responds to the Mexican tariff imposition is going to be a vital test of his commitment to existing free trade regimes, let alone expanding free trade. The truck issue has been simmering since 2001; some key US lawmakers backed by American trucking unions claim, without any merit, that Mexican trucks do not meet US standards, a claim that looks suspiciously like an effort to protect US trucking from Mexican competition. Regardless of what Obama intends to do regarding reopening NAFTA or trying to re-do the signed but not yet ratified free trade deals with Colombia and South Korea, it is essential that he send a strong signal on this issue, not only to Mexico but to the rest of the world. The US is the leader and driving engine of the global market and of the free trade regime, but US support for free trade has always been very slim (recent survets by the Pew Global Attitudes Project have found year after year that the US has the lowest public support for free trade among all developed nations).

With the economic crisis cascading around the globe, pressures for protectionist measures have increased, and while we're not anywhere close to Smoot-Hawley land yet, the last thing the US and the global economy needs is more inefficiency, waste, and protection. Obama may have picked a trade lightweight for USTR but his willingness to adhere to an existing US trade agreement, to compromise with one of the US's most important trade partners, and to show a commitment to free trade can send an even more powerful signal.

Waterboarding and the Obama Administration

2009-03-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

Attorney General Eric Holder has once again denounced the use of waterboarding, stating in a speech before the Jewish Council of Public Affairs that "waterboarding is torture ... My Justice Department will not justify it, will not rationalize it and will not condone it." In support of this stance, President Obama in January ordered that all government officials abide by the US Army Field Manual during interrogations.

Once again, I will say: It doesn't matter what Obama says or does. If waterboarding is to be illegal, if it is to be forbidden for use in interrogations, Congress must pass a law making waterboarding illegal and defining it as torture. If it is Obama who defines waterboarding as torture, he can just as easily change that definition in a subsequent order.

Managing The Transition in the Department of Defense

2009-03-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder what happens in governmental offices after a change of presidential administration? Unlike most other countries, the US has a system of patronage, where most of the highest ranking positions serve at the pleasure of the chief executive, rather than as permanent members of the civil service. So what happens when one president leaves and one arrives, sweeping away huge numbers of established staffers and bringing in scores of newcomers?

Kevin Billings, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics under President Bush (and who also happens to be a 1977 graduate of the University of Puget Sound), has an insider's perspective, as he agreed to stay on through the transition to help make the change-over go as smoothly as possible. Secretary Billings has sent me a letter he drafted and has been giving to the incoming political appointees to help them adjust to their new positions. Kevin has graciously allowed me to post the letter here:

It’s Not About You – Unsolicited Advice to Political Appointees Coming to DoD

Congratulations! The President has asked you to come to the Pentagon as part of his team. This will be one of the most challenging jobs you’ve ever had – and if you do it right – one of the most rewarding.

Every hour of every day you get to work with the best people in the world. I often say, I get to go to work with over a million Type-A volunteers every day who will all take a bullet to defend this country. How amazing is that?

All of these wonderful Americans get that you are part of the civilian chain of command. They, like you, have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and your new role in that Constitution makes you to many – if not all – their superior. As a result, they will with genuine respect, call you Sir or Ma’am, but don’t let it go to your head. However, that is easier said than done.

There are staff and Action Officers to facilitate your efforts and they will treat you with great respect. Perhaps more than you think you deserve or are comfortable with. But it is important to remember – it’s not about you – it’s about the position you hold and the President who put you there.

With that in mind, I offer some lessons learned. Most of this is obvious – good manners and kindness go a long way – but, its not something I ever saw put in one place and its startling how many folks don’t get it or it never grows on them.

Honor the Traditions and Customs

People will stand up when you walk in a room. Everyone, it seems, calls you Sir or Ma’am. Your staff will walk on your left, leaving in a tradition from medieval times, the honored position on the right. You have rank and you will be treated accordingly. You will have peers, you will have subordinates and you will have seniors. It is imperative that you understand those relationships, and the enormous history and tradition that surround all this protocol, and behave in view of that.

I had a colleague who came out of the private sector and was quite proud of that. Informality was the order of the day in his previous life and he wanted to change the culture so that the norm around him reflected what he was comfortable with. It worked where he had been, so he thought it would put people at ease and make the environment more conducive to getting things done. All noble goals, but it had the opposite effect. Instead of being more comfortable, people were put in a position of compromising long held traditions that the Military and the Pentagon hold dear and actually facilitate getting work done to make their boss happy.

For someone coming to the Pentagon from the private sector, as I did, equate it to going to do business in a foreign country. To be effective, there are mores and customs that one is expected to appreciate learn and practice and in the Pentagon it is the same. For example, one would not go to Japan and not understand the importance of bowing or simply take a business card from someone and glance at it and move on to the next conversation. You would bow in a manner similar to your host and you would take a business card with two hands and take an appropriate amount of time to read it and reflect upon it. Simple gestures that go a long way toward saying you respect the institution. It’s the same in the Pentagon. It’s about respecting the institution and those who serve it.

Be humble – remember who you work for

In these jobs you work for a lot of people. There is your direct boss. Your boss’s boss and somewhere up the chain, the SECDEF (there is even a new language to learn – acronyms) and the President of the United States (POTUS). But most of all you work for the American people. This is both great for the ego and hugely humbling. Its important to always reflect on the hugely humbling part – your ego will take care of itself.

Take care of your people

The people who work for you, both in uniform and civilians are dedicated professionals who work in the largest bureaucracy in America. Their jobs are to make sure you function and the position is effective within that bureaucracy. They aren’t motivated by the same things as folks in the private sector and their rewards systems are different.

Take the time to understand how performance reviews are written and do the things you can do to make sure that the people who are taking care of you get taken care of by the system. Make the appropriate phone calls on behalf of your people when they are competing for new job assignments. Work with your senior military staff to make sure the right words and right stratification is in the military performance reviews.

Money doesn’t motivate here the way it does on the outside. Look for ways within the system to give people time off or other incentives for work well done.

Be aware of the stress level within your staff and down your chain. Do what you can to effectively manage the work load so that people don’t get burned out. You’ll want to go at warp speed all the time – especially when you first come in. Take care that you don’t burn your folks out. Don’t forget that while they are working 18 hours a day for you, they have family at home sometimes more than an hour commute away.

Listen, Listen, Listen

There will be plenty of opportunities to share your wisdom. But first listen. You will have preconceived ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong – and that’s good – but before you make a pronouncement about something, make sure you have all the facts and you have the total situational awareness before you speak.

Listen carefully for the nuances of what is being said and by whom. Have a sounding board so that you can make sure you heard what you thought you just heard. Take the time to ask for others’ thoughts and ideas before making up your mind.

Never forget that just about EVERYTHING has already happened at least once in the Pentagon. What ever it is that seems new to you, has in fact already HAPPENED so always remember that as a context for your analysis and decision.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Transparency is a large part of insuring the success of your organization. Make sure people know what you are doing and why you’re doing it – both inside your organization and outside. Clearly communicating priorities and expectations is fundamental to managing and leading. Like it or not, speculation regarding just about everything is rampant. It is the nature of the beast. The antidote to speculation and rumor is transparency. The more you communicate and listen for feedback, the less likely you will be to step into something you’d rather not have.

Understand, appreciate and respect the systems of the bureaucracy

You are in an organization of hundreds of thousands of people in uniform, combined with hundreds of thousands of civilians and even more contractors. These people manage thousands of programs worth hundreds of billions of dollars and they are responsible for delivering outcomes. There need to be systems and processes in place to manage all of that. Will you find that constraining? Yes. Can they be improved? Yes, your ideas on how to improve them are important. But how you get from here to there will be in large measure dependent on how well you work within the system.

Because of your position, you will be able to change certain things while you are in place simply because of your throw-weight. However, if you want the change to be lasting, it needs to be written down, vetted and memorialized in policy. This is the really hard work of government. Walking things through what seems to be endless coordination is often what separates lasting policy from the “flavor of the month.” Cultivate those who understand and can effectively work the system.

Get out of your Office

People will come to you when you ask. Your staff will schedule appointments or come in with things for you to sign or read. Walk your spaces. Make sure you go by and see your staff at their desks. Just as importantly, there are lots of folks that effect your organization who won’t come see you until asked or until there is something that needs your attention. Take the time to go visit them. You don’t always have to have an agenda. It’s amazing what you learn when you get out of your office.

It is more than the Pentagon

The real business of the Defense Department is not the inside baseball of the Pentagon – it is in supporting the Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and Merchant Mariners in the fight. Visit them, listen to them, and bring their thoughts back and share them with your colleagues. The things that you learn will be invaluable to the overall perspective you have for your job, and the people you meet will make you proud simply to be associated with them.

Say Thank You – Often

You learned this before you ever went to school. People will do little things for you all the time. Don’t let it go by without acknowledging it. You might think, “It’s their job, why do I need to thank them?” Well, when you need someone to go the extra mile, you might find it a lot easier if they know you really appreciate what they do everyday. Recognize exceptional work and effort with notes or pizza, or even champagne, but remember to say thank you for the little things as well.

Have a sense of humor

There will be things that just befuddle you, and the best thing you can do is just laugh. You will be dealing with very serious issues everyday that affect the lives and safety of America’s finest. Its serious business, but everything isn’t life and death – some things are – know the difference and be able to laugh at the situation and most importantly be able to laugh at yourself. It will give you perspective when you really need it.

Have confidence in your self

While most of what I have talked about is how to get along in the system, the President has chosen you to make progress and take whatever organization you have to an improved level. Sometimes to do this, the institution needs some shaking up and there may be times to break some china. Pick your spots. Make sure you know the consequences of your actions and are willing to live with them. This is the art of balancing that will make you effective.

Admiral Halsey once said, “There are no great people, just ordinary people called upon to do great things.” When it comes to our men and women in uniform, answering the call to serve them, is a truly a great thing. Again, congratulations, good luck, and THANK YOU!

Is The Bloom Off Of Obama's Rose?

2009-02-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

I've been saying repeatedly that those expecting President Obama to massively overhaul the controversial policies of President Bush are going to be sorely disappointed. So far, there have been grumblings about Obama's not-quite-complete disavowal of torture and extraordinary rendition.

But in the last few days, Obama's actions have shocked and dismayed civil liberties advocates who assumed the Incarnation Of Hope That Is Obama would be their standard bearer. Last week, Obama invoked, as did the Bush administration, the claim of "state secrets" to argue for the dismissal of a lawsuit against Boeing Corp. for participating in a CIA-backed rendition to Morocco that resulted in torture (the Binyamin Mohammed case). The ACLU denounced this decision, arguing that it amounted to a "ratification" of Bush's policies that indemnified US agents guilty of torture.

Today saw two more moves by Obama that horrified civil libertarians. First, was the claim by Secretary of State Clinton that pressure on China over human rights issues would not be allowed to undermine economic cooperation between the two states. Amnesty International announced that it was "shocked and extremely disappointed" by the decision. Second, just today Obama announced that his administration agreed with President Bush that detainees being held in Afghanistan should have no legal recourse under US laws, announcing that people being held at the prison at Bagram Airfield cannot use US courts to challenge the legality of their detention. An attorney with the ACLU noted that "They've now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law," while a human rights advocate working on behalf of the detainees said that "The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped."

What these people, and others, fail to realize is that there are seriously dangerous people out there who want to cause immeasurable harm to US interests and citizens. President Bush did not implement the policies because he is mean, or likes torturing people, but because he believed the policies were truly necessary to protect this country. And now that Obama is president he seems to be coming to the same realizations. This is not to argue that the policies chosen by our presidents are necessarily the right ones. I have written a book about how and why many of Bush's policies under the war on terror were indeed illegal. But those advocating for "improving human rights" must not assume that the policies should be removed because they are nasty and unpleasant.

The Case For Attacking North Korea

2009-02-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

Over at the excellent new blog Shadow Government (written in part by my former dissertation adviser and professor Peter Feaver), Philip Zelikow has a fascinating and controversial post arguing that if North Korea tries to make good on its threat to test a long-range ballistic missile the US should attack and destroy the missile on the ground. Zelikow starts by hearkening back to 2006:

Rewind back two and a half years ago, to June 2006, when North Korea was preparing an earlier series of missile tests. Two of President Clinton's top defense officials, Ash Carter and Bill Perry, published an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, entitled: "If Necessary, Strike and Destroy: North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test this Missile." Carter and Perry analyzed that, if hit with a conventional weapon,
the multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.
At the time this essay was published, I was serving in the State Department. Secretary Rice had asked me to help advise on North Korea policy. My view in June 2006 was that this analysis was basically right but that their recommendation of military action was premature, for two reasons: (1) attainment of a long-range or intercontinental missile capability would require more tests, so this one did not place North Korea at the threshold of an operational capability; and (2) given point #1, it was better to use the test to draw a "red line" with support from the international community. Thus, the next time, the United States would be in a much stronger position to act with international support.
And indeed, North Korea's missile and nuclear tests in 2006 produced just such an international foundation for further action. First came UN Security Council Resolution 1695, adopted in July 2006. There, the Council stated, it "demands that the DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme." Then came UN Security Council Resolution 1718, adopted in October 2006. That resolution was more ominous. The Council now said it was acting under the UN Charter's Chapter VII, its provisions for dealing with threats to international peace and security. These can include collective military action and self-defense. Resolution 1718 limited itself to non-military measures, but in it, the Council said it "decides that the DPRK shall suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching." This was imperative language, the strongest international action against North Korea since the 1953 Korean War armistice.

Now, however, the circumstances have changed:

In 2006, the United Nations drew a clear line, acting under Chapter VII of its Charter. Today, in 2009, the United States need not stand by and watch North Korea cross that line. Non-military measures were given a fair try. Now the political predicate for the Carter-Perry recommendations has been well laid.
The logical next step, after high-level discussions in the U.S. government and consultation with our allies, is to issue North Korea a warning to stand down (conveyed either directly, indirectly, or through a leak of planning to strike and destroy the missile). Pyongyang would either then stand down silently or they would not. We lose little from the warning if I'm right in estimating that the North Koreans cannot protect the test missile from a U.S. strike once they stand it up on the gantry. Our warning would be that, if you stand up the missile (itself a plain violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718), the United States will take it down. The North Korean perfection of a long-range nuclear missile capability against the United States, Japan, or the Republic of Korea would pose an imminent threat to the vital interests of our country.
If the United States strikes North Korea's missiles on their launch site, other would-be proliferators will take notice -- thus lending much greater weight to the fresh diplomatic initiatives the Obama administration has in mind. The downside, as in 2006, is the possibility of North Korean escalation against South Korea. The United States must consider its own security, the security of its Japanese ally, and the security of its South Korean ally. Ideally, all should arrive at a common understanding of what must be done to protect their long-term security.

Fascinating stuff.

North Korea is clearly trying to probe President Obama to see what he is made of. It is vital that he react firmly and decisively. Even if North Korean proliferation is, at this point, a fait accompli, it is not too late to prevent the deployment and testing of the delivery system that would not only threaten the US but Japan, China, Russia, India, and many other states. I whole-heartedly agree with Zelikow's assessment and prescription. Let's hope Obama does as well.

Obama Listens To Weinberger

2009-02-13T15:32:00.001-08:00

OK, not really. But, back in November 2007, I wrote:

If the US intends to compromise at all on the missile shield, the price should be nothing less than Russia's complete cooperation in pressuring Iran to comply with its obligations under the NPT. That would be a worthy return on an unwise investment.

Today, Reuters is reporting that:

The United States signaled a willingness on Friday to slow plans for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe if Russia agreed to help stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

...

"If we are able to work together to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, we would be able to moderate the pace of development of missile defenses in Europe," a senior U.S. administration official told Reuters.
It was the most explicit statement yet by an administration official linking the missile shield to Russia's willingness to help resolve the international stand-off over Iran's nuclear program.

Excellent move.

The Peace Process In Trouble

2009-02-13T08:57:00.001-08:00

The recent Israeli parliamentary elections are bad news for those who retain even the faintest glimmer of hope for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The moderate Kadima party "won" the election by claiming the most seats -- 28 -- in the 120 seat Knesset, leaving it in need of 31 votes to form a government. The Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu claimed 27 seats, but the breakdown of the remaining seats with its strong right-wing tilt means that Likud may have a better chance of putting together a coalition. The once mighty Labor Party that ruled the country from its inception in 1948 until the rise of Likud in the 1970s claimed a pathetic 13. Today comes news that Kadima and Likud are considering forming a unity government including Labor that would create a coalition of 68 seats. Israel has had a unity government once before with Shimon Peres of Labor and Yitzhak Shamir of Likud rotating the prime ministry.

While this may be better for Israeli politics than a narrow coalition that empowers narrower, more extreme parties like the quasi-racist, anti-religious party of Yisrael Beiteinu or the strict religious parties like Shas or United Torah, it doesn't bode well for progress towards the two-state solution. Rumors also abound of a Likud-Labor-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition. While it's too early to predict what result will emerge, any government that includes Likud, and Netanyahu in particular, will not be friendly to the peace process that the Obama administration is hoping to advance.

The problem is that the longer the status quo drags on, the harder the two-state solution becomes to realize. Israeli settlement in the West Bank continues more or less unabated; illegal settlements deep in the West Bank are becoming increasingly permanent. While most of the settlers live immediately around Jerusalem and close to the Green Line -- and those settlements will likely be annexed to Israel in exchange for an equal amount of territory currently in Israel -- it is the settlements deep in the West Bank that are the problems. Israel has been entirely unwilling to curtail these settlements, and the US has, to date, been entirely unwilling to use its massive leverage with Israel to force it to do so.

And Israel must do so. The alternatives to the two-state solution are entirely unacceptable. As Stephen Walt points out at his new-ish blog:

First, Israel could drive most or all of the 2.5 million Palestinians out of the West Bank by force, thereby preserving "greater Israel" as a Jewish state through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians would surely resist, and it would be a crime against humanity, conducted in full view of a horrified world. No American government could support such a step, and no true friend of Israel could endorse that solution.
Second, Israel could retain control of the West Bank but allow the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected enclaves, while it controlled access in and out, their water supplies, and the airspace above them. This appears to have been Ariel Sharon's strategy before he was incapacitated, and Bibi Netanyahu's proposal for "economic peace" without a Palestinian state seems to envision a similar outcome. In short, the Palestinians would not get a viable state of their own and would not enjoy full political rights. This is the solution that many people -- including Prime Minister Olmert -- compare to the apartheid regime in South Africa. It is hard to imagine the United States supporting this outcome over the long term, and Olmert has said as much. Denying the Palestinians' their own national aspirations is also not going to end the conflict.
Which brings me to the third option. The Israeli government could maintain its physical control over "greater Israel" and grant the Palestinians full democratic rights within this territory. This option has been proposed by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. But there are formidable objections to this outcome: It would mean abandoning the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish state, and binational states of this sort do not have an encouraging track record, especially when the two parties have waged a bitter conflict across several generations.

The first and third options are inconceivable. Which means that if the two-state solution collapses or becomes impossible the only viable alternative is the second. And the second means a never-ending moral nightmare for Israel, a never-ending oppression for the Palestinians, and a never-ending war between the two.

Israel's insane electoral system and massively divided political culture makes it unlikely that Israel will ever be capable of dismantling the settlements on its own. The Europeans are trusted by Israel or the Palestinians, nor do they have sufficient leverage over Israel to make a difference. Only the US can push Israel towards the right, nay the only, acceptable outcome. President Obama should do whatever is necessary, including curtailing US economic and military aid to Israel, to ensure that the deep settlement stops and all illegal settlements are dismantled. Failure to do so not only jeopardizes the peace process, it risks Israel's very survival.

Best IR Joke of the Day? Of the Year? Ever?

2009-02-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

US General David Petraeus met with French Defense Minister Herve Morin to discuss the on-going war in Afghanistan. However, the two did not discuss whether NATO members, and particularly France, would increase their troop presence in conjunction with Obama's planned "surge."

And why would there be any need to increase France's troop presence? According to Morin:

"France's effort counts for more than just the number of men on the ground, first of all because they are better than the others."

I can't remember hearing a better IR joke.

Let's see...there's the classified NATO report (note, both France and NATO have denied the existence of this report) stating that the French troops who were ambushed in August 2008 were woefully underequipped, lacking sufficient ammunition, food, radios, and other equipment to carry out a two-day long mission against Taliban forces. In the wake of the August ambush, a group of French troops announced their refusal to deploy to Afghanistan.

'Nuff said.

The Danger to Free Trade

2009-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran one of the scarier articles I've read in quite some time. In short, according to the article, "Countries grappling with global recession have enacted a wave of barriers to world commerce since early last month, scrambling to safeguard their key industries -- often by damaging those of their neighbors."

The details:

Russia has introduced 28 measures to raise tariffs on other countries' imports and subsidize its own exports since November, and plans six more.
It's not alone. The European Union has warned the U.S. that proposed "Buy American" provisions in planned stimulus spending could break trade rules. Meanwhile, EU nations have reversed direction and tightened their own trade rules, for instance by resuming subsidies to dairy farmers' exports and effectively barring Chinese screws and bolts from their market, while accusing China of dumping them below cost.

The U.S. is planning retaliatory tariffs on Italian water and French cheese to punish the EU for restricting imports of U.S. chicken and beef. India is proposing to increase tariffs on foreign steel at the request of its steel industry.
The landscape is moving so fast that officials at the WTO, the world's top trade-law enforcer, say they're relying on news reports to keep up with the changes, as governments are often slow to report them. They are reconsidering their Jan. 23 report that concluded protectionist pressures were largely being kept at bay.

Among the changes just since that finding: Egypt has imposed duties on sugar, and the U.S. has levied new tariffs on Chinese goods it contends are being dumped on the market, including mattress springs and graphite electrodes, used to conduct electricity in factory furnaces.

The WTO's figures show that antidumping cases overall, in which nations contend others are disrupting markets by unloading goods below cost, are up 40% since a year ago. In October, as the extent of the global recession became more certain, WTO director Pascal Lamy ordered his staff to start tracking protective actions, say WTO officials.

This is very scary ground we're treading on here. Free trade is subject to massive collective action problems that make these kinds of protectionist responses to crises very attractive. And the implementation of trade barriers can take on a spiral dynamic as one aggrieved party acts to protect its own industries and punish another state for its actions. In the 1920s and 1930s, such "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies undoubtedly worsened the impact and length of the Great Depression and led to a 66% contraction in global trade that contributed to the collapse of the German economy and the rise of Nazi Germany.

Is such an outcome possible today? The Wall Street Journal article doesn't seem to think so:

Economists and trade analysts say the current rash of trade constraints could make it harder for global economic growth to recover from the current downturn. Global trade is expected to shrink by more than 2.1% this year after growing by 6.2% in 2008, according to the WTO.

To be sure, the current growth of protectionism is different and less sweeping than the trade wars of the 1930s. "It's a creeping form of protectionism," said Frederik Erixon, director of ECIPE, a trade-policy think tank based in Brussels. By comparison, the Smoot-Hawley act in 1930 raised U.S. tariffs on foreign imports by an average of 20% across the board. "That could never happen now," Mr. Erixon said. "Political leaders agree it's illegal and immoral."

It's true we're a long way from the 20% tariff increases of Smoot-Hawley. But I don't put much faith in the legal and moral impulses of our political leaders. Just look at the idiotic "Buy American" language contained in the US stimulus package.

It is vital that in a time of economic fears and rising worries over trade that the US send a strong message to the international community of its own commitment to free trade. By backing away from the "Buy American" language, the US can help stop the justifications being used by other countries to protect their own industries and do what is best for the American economy. But American action needs to go beyond that. President Obama must push to stop these anti-dumping actions and to reestablish the norm of free trade. If he doesn't, we're in for some longer, harder times.

Update on Obama and Rendition

2009-02-05T14:55:00.001-08:00

A few days ago I wrote about an apparent loophole in Obama's executive order dealing with the treatment of suspected terrorists, as it appeared that Obama had left open the possibility of continuing the policy of "extraordinary rendition" used by the Bush Administration. I did note that it was likely that "even if Obama does render prisoners to other countries that he will procure assurances that the prisoners will not be subject to torture."

Today, Obama's CIA director-to-be Leon Panetta confirms this view, stating that while rendition will continue, prisoners will not be delivered to countries for the purpose of conducting secret interrogations possibly involving torture. According to Panetta:

I think renditions where we return individuals to another country where they prosecute them under their laws, I think that is an appropriate use of rendition. Having said that, if we capture a high-value prisoner, I believe we have the right to hold that individual temporarily, to debrief that individual and to make sure that individual is properly incarcerated so we can maintain control over that individual.

Now, if the practice of rendition remain availabe for use, there's nothing necessarily preventing Obama from using it in the way that Bush did. But for now, at least, Panetta's testimony seems to make a clean break from the Bush Administration and close the door on the use of rendition as a back-door to torture.

Thoughts On The First 16 Days: An Open Thread

2009-02-04T08:43:00.001-08:00

A good friend and reader asked me to start an open thread on the first 2 and 1/2 weeks of the Obama presidency. Normally, a new president is given 100 days before any kind of judgment is passed, and while 16 days isn't hardly sufficient time to make a serious assessment, I figured "Why not?"

My very early impressions are of someone who doesn't quite understand the burden and responsibilities of being president. Now, maybe noone can possibly anticipate and understand the burden and responsibilities of being president until actually becoming president. But, as I mentioned during the campaign, Candidate Obama was making promises that President Obama would be very unlikely to keep, such as rapidly withdrawing the troops from Iraq. Without doubt, the troops will come home, but they will do so on a schedule much closer to the one drawn up by President Bush in the Status of Forces Agreement than to the one promised by Obama. A prime example of that was Obama's prohibition on lobbyists serving in his administration; a prohibition that was dropped at the first sign of conflict. Obama granted a waiver to his new rule so that William Lynn, a former vice president of and lobbyist for Raytheon, one of the largest defense contractors in DC, could be named Deputy Secretary of Defense. While it is concerning having a lobbyist placed so highly in the DoD, what is more concerning is the fact that Obama was willing to break a campaign promise and newly-installed rule so quickly. This gives me the sense that Obama doesn't quite get the connection between what the president says and what the president does, or the magnitude of each and every word that comes out of his mouth.

Similarly, Obama's retreat from the "Buy America" language contained in the stimulus legislation sends the same message. Obama told the Fox Network that ""I think it would be a mistake ... at a time when worldwide trade is declining for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade." Wasn't world-wide trade declining when Obama started discussing re-opening NAFTA? And if sending a strong free-trade message is a priority, why did Obama reduce the prioritization given to trade and nominate someone with no experience in trade to be his trade representative? Again, I get the sense that Obama thinks that the things he says don't matter to the degree that they do.

His interview to Al Arabiya televsion pretty much confirms this sense. In it, Obama said that:

My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.

Do the American people see the Muslim world as their enemy? Do the American people not already realize that the Muslim world is filled with people who want to live better lives? If that's the case, why have the American people expended their blood and treasure to protect and liberate Muslims from tyranny and oppression in places that often had little strategic value to the US, such as Somalia and Kosovo, not to mention in Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq?

And Obama's grasp of history seems to be a bit shaky as well. Were things really better between the US and the Muslim world "20 or 30 years ago"? As Jeff Jacoby writes in today's Boston Globe:

Twenty years ago, American hostages were being tortured by their Hezbollah captors in Beirut and hundreds of grief-stricken families were in mourning for their loved ones, murdered by Libyan terrorists as they flew home for Christmas on Pan Am Flight 103. Thirty years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, proclaimed America "the Great Satan," and inspired his acolytes to storm the US embassy and hold scores of Americans hostage. Meanwhile, Islamist mobs were destroying US embassies in Pakistan and Libya, and staging anti-American riots in other countries. Radical Islam's hatred of the United States is not a recent phenomenon, it has nothing to do with "respect," and it isn't going to be extinguished by sweet words - not even those of so sweet a speaker as our new president.

I know that US foreign policy towards the Muslim world isn't often conducted solely for the benefit of the Muslim people, and certainly there have been disastrously bad decisions made in the past (the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh comes to mind). And certainly, the US can and should be more critical of Israel and push Israel to make greater concessions in the West Bank to advance whatever is left of the peace process. But to act as if the US has done nothing in recent years to help the Muslim world, to ignore the sacrifices that this country has made for the Muslim world, and to insinuate that the hatred Islam feel for the US is caused by problems of "respect," is beneath the president of the United States. Obama seemed to feel the need to appear humble in this interview, and that's understandable. But, he went too far. As Charles Krauthammer writes, "In these 20 years, this nation has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any nation, Muslim or non-Muslim, anywhere on Earth. Why are we apologizing?"

Again, it's far too early to pass any kind of judgment. It's certainly possible that Obama will grow into the job, and I expect that he will. But these early "returns" confirm my fear that Obama is too inexperienced for this job; that he doesn't understand the difficult choices that come with the most powerful job on the planet; that he believes in himself to such a degree that he is willing to break major campaign promises just days into his administration; and that he doesn't get the gravity with which his words are heard by others. Time will tell if he comes to understand these things.

Feel free to comment on your own impressions on the newborn Obama presidency.

Those In Power, Do

2009-02-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

I've written several times recently that the inauguration of Barack Obama would not be likely to produce any major changes in US foreign policy. Indeed, we've already seen evidence of waffling, or at least strategic ambiguity, on the question of torture. But this weekend saw perhaps the most surprising evidence of this.

President Obama has, apparently, decided to allow the CIA to continue the policy of rendition in which suspected terrorists are transfered to other countries so that they may be detained and interrogated beyond the reach and protection of US law. As the Chicago Tribune reports:

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as an "illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a subsidiary of Boeing Corp., which is accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

The decision to maintain the use of rendition was contained in a small provision in the executive order that closed the CIA's secret overseas prisons that read that the order "do[es] not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis." The members of al Qaeda, including many of those being held in Guantanamo, are exceedingly dangerous people who seek to kill as many people as they can. It is completely unsurprising that Obama has realized this, and it equally unsurprising that he has apparently decided that some extraordinary mechanisms need to remain in place to address this threat beyond those of the American criminal justice system.

What is, shocking, however is the apparent acquiesence to Obama's decision by Human Rights Watch, an organization that was at the forefront of the criticism leveled at President Bush for his policies. According to the Chicago Tribune:

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured."

As Darren Hutchinson, a law professor at American University, points out, "in an effort to defend the new administration in Washington, Human Rights Watch has apparently modified its position on the issue of rendition, which it previously viewed as inherently abusive and inhumane." Hutchinson goes on to illustrate the degree of this about-face:

Human Rights Watch: Before
Human Rights Watch, a very respected and passionate defender of civil liberty, was one of the most vocal critics of the CIA's rendition program. In fact, Human Rights Watch prepared a comprehensive document that reports incidents of alleged torture of rendered individuals. The report makes the following policy recommendations:
The US government should:

Repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic and permanently discontinue the CIA's rendition program;

Disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody by the CIA since 2001, including detainees who were rendered to Jordan;

Repudiate the use of "diplomatic assurances" against torture and ill-treatment as a justification for the transfer of a suspect to a place where he or she is at risk of such abuse;

Make public any audio recordings or videotapes that the CIA possesses of interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA to foreign custody;

Provide appropriate compensation to all persons arbitrarily detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody (emphasis added).
Human Rights Watch rightfully opposed the practice of torture by the Bush administration, but it also demanded the cessation of rendition and that victims of the practice receive compensation.

The organization's recommendations went even farther, however. In order to make sure that the program ended, Human Rights Watch recommended that other countries should:
Refuse to cooperate in secret detention and rendition efforts, and disclose all information about past cooperation in such efforts (emphasis added).
Human Rights Watch: After
Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization's "Washington advocacy director," the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition. Instead (quoting the L.A. Times):
"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time."

Malinowski said he had urged the Obama administration to stipulate that prisoners could be transferred only to countries where they would be guaranteed a public hearing in an official court. "Producing a prisoner before a real court is a key safeguard against torture, abuse and disappearance," Malinowski said (emphasis added).

Human Rights Watch, which has been unsurprisingly silent on this issue so far, most likely is confident that even if Obama does render prisoners to other countries that he will procure assurances that the prisoners will not be subject to torture. But there are no guarantees of that. That is the whole point of rendition: to get the subjects outside the reach of US law. Furthemore, HRW made it clear that its opposition to rendition was not solely based on the potential for torture. Hutchinson is appalled by this "flip-flop," calling Human Rights Watch's action "deplorable."

But just as Obama's action shouldn't be surprising, neither is that of HRW. Given the overt partisan and fawning nature of both the media and the major human rights organizations, as well as the not-so-slightly-creepy cult of personality that has sprung up around Obama, it shouldn't shock anyone that Human Rights Watch would shy away from criticizing the new president on grounds where it once lambasted President Bush.

Bush's Last Success

2009-01-31T12:40:00.000-08:00

Say what you will about the presidency of George W. Bush, the war on terror, the invasion of Iraq, or anything else...

This is truly amazing. The fact that Iraq, a country that suffered under one of history's most brutal dictators, just voted in (what seem to be) free, fair, and safe democratic elections is a legacy of which President Bush should be most proud. And for which he deserves far more credit than he has been given.

February 1, 2009

Under Tight Security, Elections Are Calm in Iraq

By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted on Saturday for local representatives, on an almost violence-free election day aimed at creating provincial councils that more closely represent Iraq’s ethnic, sectarian and tribal balance. By nightfall, there were no confirmed deaths, and children played soccer on closed-off streets in a generally joyous atmosphere.

Security was extraordinary. Driving was banned in most of the country to prevent suicide bombers from attacking any of the more than 6,000 polling centers and security checkpoints, often spaced just yards apart. The tight security, coupled with confusion over where voters should cast their ballots, appeared to have reduced turnout in many districts across the country. Senior members of several political parties were complaining publicly even before the polls closed.

Nationwide turnout varied: some provinces hovered around 60 percent, with Basra, a Shiite-dominated region in the south, still lower at about 50 percent. Others, including the northern province of Nineveh, which is strained by political tensions and violence between Arabs and Kurds, had 75 percent participation, according to local election officials. Contentious feelings from the campaign spilled over into election day, when opposing party leaders made many complaints about their rivals to American and international observers who visited polling sites.

Turnout was also high in Anbar Province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area where residents largely boycotted the 2005 national elections because of threats by insurgents and opposition to the American-led invasion. Sunnis’ participation now is considered critical to restoring balance to regional politics and perhaps undercutting a reason for violence.

“I just voted and I’m very happy,” Mukhalad Waleed, 35, said in the city of Ramadi, in Anbar. “We could not do the same thing the last time because of the insurgency.”

Part way through the day, the government lifted the vehicle ban in some areas to allow voters to travel to polling stations farther afield. It also extended the voting period by an hour, until 6 p.m.

Results are not expected for several days, with politicians anxiously waiting to find out how many councils will change hands, and if widespread dissatisfaction voiced at religious parties will translate into fewer seats for them.

More than 14,000 candidates are competing for 440 seats in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The seats are for provincial councils that control municipal budgets and have the power to hire and fire people, giving successful candidates a great deal of power and influence in a nation with high unemployment. There was no voting in the semiautonomous Kurdish region, or in the divided city of Kirkuk.

In Qahtaniya, a village southwest of Sinjar in Nineveh Province that was the site in 2007 of the single worst truck bombing during the war, with as many as 500 people killed, the voting was orderly and even cheerful. Khodar Khudaida Rashu, the administrator of the Qahtaniya subdistrict, predicted that turnout would exceed 90 percent in most places.

The voting was the largest electoral exercise to be held since the wave of violence peaked in 2006 to 2007, and conditions were considerably more peaceful this time.

As Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki voted in Baghdad’s Green Zone, now under Iraqi control but still heavily fortified, he said: “I am very happy today because all the indications and information indicate a big turnout in the voting centers. This is a victory for all Iraqis.”

In one of the few reported episodes of violence, two people in Baghdad’s Sadr City were shot and wounded by Iraqi security forces as they tried to enter a polling center carrying cameras and recorders, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

One witness said the two men quarreled with soldiers guarding the voting station, demanding to be allowed to go in through the rear entrance while the soldiers insisted that they go through the front door.

There was some violence in the period leading up to election day, with at least five candidates and three campaign workers killed during the campaign.

And in an episode apparently unrelated to the election, American forces searching for an Islamic extremist shot two Iraqi national policemen in Mosul in the early hours of Saturday. There were conflicting reports about the circumstances: the Americans said they were returning fire from a nearby building and found the two dead men there afterward. However, the Nineveh Provincial operations center said that the policemen were at a checkpoint when the Americans suddenly opened fire.

Over all, there seemed much eagerness to vote, but also confusion. Some voters showed up at the polling station closest to their home instead of the one they were assigned to because of the ban on driving. Others were turned away because their names did not appear on voter rolls.

Voter registration is organized around a national system for delivering food rations, a holdover from the Hussein era. Voters have to consult two lists to find out if they are registered at a given polling station. First, each person has to find the name of his or her food ration distributor. Then the voter must consult a much larger list of all of the families served by that distributor. If the voter’s name is missing, he or she cannot vote at that station.

Some frustrated Iraqis gave up, while others reported going from center to center before finding the one associated with their distributor.

Nasreen Yousif, a 54-year-old Christian, visited three polling stations in the New Baghdad district of the capital but could not find her name at any of them.

“Now I am going home,” she said. “Maybe there is a fourth school, but it is too far and I can’t walk any more.”

She added: “It is obviously a mess. If it is not a mess, where is my name?”

The Iraqi government and election officials blamed voters for the confusion.

Qassim al-Aboudi, the chief officer of the Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission, said, “We repeated many times before the election that some of the voters might have to vote at remote polling stations because they didn’t update their voter registrations when they changed their addresses.” He said election officials had given people 45 days to update their information.

Even when people could vote, the ballots were often confusing. Some Iraqis stuck to voting for relatives or powerful politicians. One Basra police officer, Haidar Khalaf, 27, said he had chosen the local candidate on the slate of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. “I just voted for Abdul Hussein,” Mr. Khalaf said. “I only know his first names. I was just told to vote for him.”

The vote on Saturday, in addition to deciding how local governments are run, is also seen as an important indicator for national elections that are to be held within a year and decide the shape of the central government.

One of the most powerful Shiite blocs nationally, the Sadrist movement led by the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, is not contesting these provincial polls. It is, however, backing two other parties.

The Sunni parties are expected to make a better showing, especially in the west and north, where they boycotted the last round of polls at the height of sectarian violence in 2005.

In the mostly Shiite south, the main rivalry will be between two Islamist parties: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose Iranian-trained militia is now a mainstay of the Iraqi security forces, and Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party.

Secular parties are hoping that they will be able to capitalize on a protest vote against religious parties amid widespread criticism of their failure to provide jobs, services and utilities since 2005.

In addition to the widespread confusion, many complaints were lodged about the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In at least two instances, supporters were accused of handing out slips bearing the party’s ballot number inside the polling station, a violation of election rules; observers complained the practice was widespread.

In Nineveh, carefully negotiated agreements dictated where the Kurdish militias, or pesh merga, would be stationed around the polls, along with the local and national Iraqi police and the army. And still officers and soldiers entered the polling sites with weapons seemingly at will, another violation of the rules.

“It’s not fair,” said Wahid Mundu Hamu, a member of the Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress. “We had hoped for the best, but that’s what I feel.” He then expressed fear that his people, a small Kurdish minority with its own religion and culture, would be overwhelmed by the larger Sunni and Kurdish parties vying for control in the region. “The Yazidis have been oppressed for so long,” he said. “And you’ll see that more and more.”

Reporting was contributed by Sam Dagher from Basra; Timothy Williams and Ian Fisher from Baghdad; Steven Lee Myers from Qahtaniya; and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, Baquba and Mosul.

Afghanistan and Heroin

2009-01-28T10:48:00.001-08:00

As President Obama begins the process of switching focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan seemingly gets more dire with each passing day. In his column, Joel Brinkley offers some sober advice to Obama, including a suggestion that the US seal the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan by "declar[ing] the border closed, patrol[ing] it with helicopter gunships and shoot[ing] anyone who tries to cross." He also identifies the cultivation of poppies as a major impediment to progress, as "How can [NATO] troops quell an insurgency when the enemy is buying weaponry and enriching himself with drug money – as much as $100 million a year, the United Nations says – from the southern areas of Afghanistan he controls? And how can Western forces enlist cooperation from the government it is trying to protect when government leaders are also sucking up money from the opium farmers at such a voracious rate that Afghanistan is now classified as the fifth-most corrupt nation on earth?"

The solution, for Brinkely, is simple:

The United States, Afghanistan’s patron state, needs to tell Karzai that the price of continued support is the immediate eradication of the opium crops. Sure, the farmers will be angry. But what’s worse: enraging some constituents – or standing by while these same people hand over $100 million a year to your enemy?

Brinkely's advice violates everything the US military has learned about counter-insurgency warfare in Iraq. The most important thing is providing security and confidence to the local populace; if that cannot be done, the insurgents will be able to move among them and will be impossible to find. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, where the corruption of the central government and the seemingly endless litany of civilians deaths from NATO airstrikes have turned many Afghanis away from their government.

Poppy cultivation, and the subsequent production of heroin, is one of the only cash crops available to many Afghani farmers. Destroy their sole source of income, and they will have no choice but to turn to the Taliban for support as the central government has demonstrated no ability to develop a social network in the more rural area of the country.

Furthermore, how well has drug eradication worked in the US war on drugs? The US has spent $6 billion on coca eradication efforts in Colombia, only to see coca production rise by 15%. Why would it be any more likely to work in Afghanistan, which one can only assume would be a more difficult project than in Colombia?

A better answer is one I wrote about nearly 2 years ago: the legalization of poppy cultivation. Tony Blair raised this issue, arguing that the poppies could be purchased by NATO forces and used to produce opiate-based medicines (which just so happen to be in short supply). Even if the crop was purchased and subsequently destroyed, this option has at least two major benefits over Brinkely's suggestion. First, it would provide Afghani farmers with a reliable source of income that would be attributable to both the Afghani government and to NATO, two entities which are desperately in need of some good PR. Secound, it would deprive the resurgent Taliban of a vital source of income.

Shifting the outcome in Iraq took a major change in strategic thinking: the result was the surge that has paid off across the board in Iraq and has created the real possibility of success there. The same is true in Afghanistan. The tired logic and rhetoric of the war on drugs must be abandoned if the Taliban is to defeated and Afghanistan is to be given the chance that Iraq now seems to have. President Obama must not be held hostage by old ideas and domestic politics that sees poppy legalization as the first step towards drug legalization in the US. If legalizing and buying Afghani poppies can help the US and NATO win "the central front in the war on terror" then it is a move that must be made.

Obama And Torture

2009-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, President Obama issued executive orders that gave heart to many who believe that the policies used by President Bush in the war on terror have damaged the moral and legal reputation and integrity of the United States. The orders directed the Central Intelligence Agency to shut down its secret overseas prisons, ordered the prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay to be shut closed as soon as possible but in no longer than one year, and banned the CIA from using "coercive interrogation methods," requiring the Agency to adhere to the same rules that the military follows in interrogating suspected terrorists. Taken together with the statement by Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder at his confirmation hearing that "waterboarding is torture" these orders seem to close the door on the debate on whether the United States does, and should, use extreme methods in its interrogations of suspected terrorists.

But not so fast.

In his own confirmation hearing, Obama's nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, refused to classify waterboarding as torture. He did say that the US would no longer use waterboarding as an interrogation technique and that the US would not use torture, but when asked directly whether waterboarding is itself an act of torture he refused to answer. Senator Carl Levin pushed Blair to answer, saying "If the attorney general designee can answer it, you can too," but Blair would not.

It may be that Blair is trying to protect US intelligence agents from prosecution, particularly as any agent that used waterboarding very likely did so believing that the Bush administration had determined that the technique was legal.

But it's also possible that the Obama administration is trying to keep the door open to use coercive interrogation techniques in the future if it is deemed necessary. Indeed, White House counsel Gregory Craig seemed to give confirmation to this in a briefing to congresspeople on Wednesday. According to the New York Times, "a Congressional official who attended the session said Mr. Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that new restrictions on C.I.A. methods might be unwise and indicated that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other than the 19 techniques allowed for the military."

Let's be clear what is being discussed here. The 19 techniques that the military is allowed to use are all relatively tame when compared to the extraordinary techniques authorized for the CIA (described below). They can be found in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 and range from "Direct Approach" (simply asking the subject questions) to offering incentives to playing on a subject's emotions (fear, hate, pride, ego) to tricking the subject that the interrogators already know the answers to the questions being asked to pretending the the subject is believed to be someone more important and dangerous and forcing the subject to reveal what he knows to prove he's not the other person to simply being silent and making the subject nervous. Two of the more controversial techniques, both of which require authorization from higher up the chain of command, are the "Mutt and Jeff" (also known as "good cop-bad cop") and "False Flag" in which the subject is led to believe that his interrogators are from another country not the US. Finally, one technique, "Separation," is highly restricted and requires authorization from flag officers. According to the Field Manual:

The purpose of separation is to deny the detainee the opportunity to communicate with other detainees in order to keep him from learning counter-resistance techniques or gathering new information to support a cover story, decreasing the detainee's resistance to interrogation. Separation does not constitute sensory deprivation, which is prohibited. For the purposes of this manual, sensory deprivation is defined as an arranged situation causing significant psychological distress due to a prolonged absence, or significant reduction, of the usual external stimuli and perceptual opportunities. Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior. Detainees will not be subjected to sensory deprivation.

Physical separation is the best and preferred method of separation. As a last resort, when physical separation of detainees is not feasible, goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs may be utilized as a field expedient method to generate a perception of separation.

Objectives:
• Physical Separation: Prevent the detainee from communicating with other detainees (which might increase the detainee's resistance to interrogation) and foster a feeling of futility.
• Field Expedient Separation: Prolong the shock of capture. Prevent the detainee from communicating with other detainees (which might increase the detainee's resistance to interrogation) and foster a feeling of futility.

The coercive interrogation methods authorized for use by the CIA are as follows:

The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor, for more than 40 hours.
The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time the prisoner is doused with cold water.
Waterboarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane or a towel is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. The gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

CIA agents undergoing waterboarding lasted an average of 14 seconds before giving in; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed apparantly lasted two and a half minutes. Christopher Hitchens voluntarily underwent waterboarding; the video is here.

There is a lot of discussion back and forth about the utility and necessity of coercive interrogation methods. However, as the Times article cited above makes clear, the CIA has for years asserted that the military's interrogation techniques are insufficient to pry information out of hardened terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Of course, many people, including former CIA interrogators, claim that the use of the more extreme methods are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.

This seems to be a smart move by Obama: Repudiate the policies of Bush openly and decisively, but preserve the freedom of action he might need to interrogate other high-level members of al Qaeda. President Obama has very likely learned a very important lesson in his first days on the job. It's one thing to criticize policies as an outsider when one does bear the responsibility for the protection of the country; it's another thing entirely to do so when one is president.

The Need To Define Torture

2009-01-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

Many people are looking to President Obama to correct the moral and legal failings attributed to the Bush administration, not the least of which is the use of harsh coercive interrogation methods such as waterboarding. The statement by Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder at his confirmation hearing that "waterboarding is torture" is seen as a first step in purging the use of torture from the US's counterterrorism practices. The Bush administration never clearly defined the legality of the use of waterboarding; but, as I have pointed out before, neither did Congress. Nor does international law. Legal prohibitions of torture often wrestle with the thorny question of how to define what is and what is not torture. Not all coercive interrogation techniques are, nor should be, deemed torture. So what is, and what should be?

The task must lie with Congress. It is Congress that makes the laws that bind the president and the country's agents. Defining terror as that which causes "severe pain and suffering" as both Congress and international law have currently done, leaves far too much room for presidents to, as Bush did, parse defintions of pain. As Eric Posner points out, any attempt to prosecute Bush administration officials for the usage of waterboarding would likely run up against the following defense:

The waterboarders themselves will testify that they received assurances from superiors and lawyers that waterboarding is not illegal, and that they believed that waterboarding was necessary to protect the nation. The superiors, up to Bush himself, will testify that lawyers assured them that waterboarding is not illegal, and that they believed that waterboarding was necessary to protect the nation. The lawyers will testify that they honestly believed that waterboarding is not torture—it caused “pain” but not “severe pain,” in the language of the statute—and that in any event statutes need to be interpreted narrowly to avoid a conflict with the president’s commander-in-chief powers. The jury will believe all these people and it will refuse to convict or, at best, it will hang, prolonging everyone’s agony. It might refuse to convict because it doesn’t believe that anyone has the requisite mens rea; because it doesn’t understand the law; or because (most likely) it just doesn’t believe that people should go to jail when they are trying to protect the nation and the law in question is confusing or ambiguous.

This defenses were made possible by a feckless Congress, which outlawed the use of torture but never clearly defined its terms. It is up to Congress as our country's most representative body, as the body charged with creating the law, to define what practices our military and intelligence operatives should be permitted to use to protect the nation. It is not enough for President Obama or his Attorney General-designate to declare "waterboarding is torture," for if there is another serious attack on or threat to this nation, the government will be, as was the Bush administration, under great pressure to take any actions necessary to protect the American people. Congress must put this issue to rest by clearing defining what interrogation techniques are allowable, and what are to be understood to be over the line.

Out With The Old, In With The New

2009-01-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow one of the most amazing aspects of modern politics will occur: a peaceful transition of power. While we and most other democratic nations take such occurrences for granted nowadays, we should keep in mind that not only is it a relatively new phenomenon, but that many countries in the world either do not have regular transfers of power or do have peaceful ones.

As George Bush prepares to leave and Barack Obama assumes the most powerful and important job in the world, it seems appropriate to reflect a bit on the last 8 years. I do believe that it is, in general, far too early to properly assess Bush's legacy, and my gut tells me that we will see his presidency in a far better light 10 or 20 years from now. But today, things don't look so good. Real Clear World has a piece highlighting 5 major foreign policy successes of the Bush administration. Let's take a look....

#5: Colombia
President Bush's administration significantly helped Colombia make giant strides in ending its decades-long war.

Colombia, a democracy, has been waging a war against the drug trade with the drug cartels and terrorism with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). By 1996 the US had decertified Colombia as cooperating on narcotics and withdrew assistance for two years, a period during which drug traffickers forged alliances with the FARC and the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces (AUC). When Andrés Pastrana took office, his top priority was to resume US assistance and he suggested a Plan Colombia, in the lines of a Marshall Plan. The Clinton administration agreed to a plan that would provide nearly $3 billion in security assistance and development aid over six years starting in 2000. While the plan aimed to strengthen the Colombian economy, local government, and establish the rule of law, it also gave way to a peace process that ceded the FARC a 16,000-acre safe haven south of Bogotá, which allowed the FARC to expand its drug production capabilities, increase its number of combatants and carry out more violence. At the same time, the AUC also became more powerful. (For further background please read Helping Colombia Sustain Progress Toward Peace, by Stephen Johnson)

When President Bush took office his Andean Regional and Andean Counternarcotics initiatives (ACI and ARI) granted more assistance to Colombia. By 2002 Andrés Pastrana had ordered the FARC out of their sanctuary zone when the FARC refused a cease-fire. That May, Álvaro Uribe, whose father had been killed by the FARC, was elected president of Colombia by running on a hard-line platform. During his first six months in office Uribe doubled aerial crop eradication efforts, raised a $780 million war tax, increased the size of the army, and started a network of 1 million civilian informants.

The Bush administration's ACI and ARI approach has focused in addressing the root causes of the drug trade, not just on curtailing the drug trade per se. The Colombian people have supported Colombia's austere government budget, its efforts to reduce public debt levels, and the economy's export-oriented growth strategy, along with the government's democratic security strategy (i.e., extending legitimate authority over national territory, all measures which complement the US's $600 million/year Plan Colombia aid.

With the US's assistance and training, the Colombian military has become more effective and more reliable. After the Colombian military's March 1, 2008 successful raid of a FARC encampment across the Ecuadorian border, the military (which years ago could hardly be trusted, as Simon Romero of the NYT reported) has dealt heavy blows against the FARC. The information yielded by the FARC laptops revealed not only Venezuela's Hugo Chávez support of the FARC, but also that of the Swiss and 30 other countries. For further reading on the FARC's international connections, see The world of the FARC (Part I: Europe) and The world of the FARC (Part II: America).

In July 2, the military successfully rescued French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, Americans Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves, and 11 Colombian officers and NCOs, in a mission that was planned and carried out by Colombians, with ultra-modern American spy technology . Following that rescue, the military has kept the FARC on the run, severing the FARC leadership and seizing their weapons while curtailing the FARC's drug production. The July rescue also showed Hugo Chávez dream of a cross-border Bolivian revolution to be a failure.

Colombia still has far to go, but thanks to the joint efforts of the Colombian people and the support of the Bush administration, it has turned itself around from being a failed, or near-failed, state to being the US's staunchest ally in South America.

I agree when it comes to FARC. US military aid has been vital in helping Colombia turn the tide against the Marxist rebels. But RCW's assessment ignores the absolute failure that Plan Colombia has been. As Foreign Policy makes clear, the US has spent $6 billion in an effort to reduce or eradicate Colombia coca cultivation and cocaine smuggling. However, between 2000 and 2006, coca cultivation rose by 15%. Now, maybe stabilizing Colombia has been worth $6 billion. But I doubt it. I find it hard to agree with the assessment of Bush's Colombia policy as a success.

#4: Military Transformation
At first blush, suggesting that transforming the military has been a success of the Bush administration seems counter-factual. After all, hasn't the U.S. military failed to bring decisive victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq? Hasn't the verdict been delivered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus that rather than lean and mean, the U.S. military needs more boots on the ground? Less tech and more mech? And indeed both men, in tandem with the incoming Obama administration, appear intent on reversing the military's emphasis on an agile, networked force to comport with the new conventional wisdom that what we really need are more soldiers skilled at pacifying unruly natives.

Looked at another way, however, transformation did indeed deliver on its promise. The U.S. military was able to swiftly depose two governments with minimal use of U.S. troops, and thus, a minimum loss of American life. In Afghanistan, the U.S. crossed 7,000 miles to run the Taliban out of power and fracture al Qaeda with an unconventional mix of precision airpower, Special Forces and C.I.A. paramilitary. In Iraq, a three week race through the desert brought down Saddam Hussein's Baathist tyranny without any of the ecological or regional catastrophes that a more protracted, conventional campaign might have provoked.

What the military failed to do - "win the peace" - was arguably never possible, even if General Eric Shinseki had his way and 300,000-plus troops poured into Baghdad. Studies of successful nation-building efforts from the Rand Corperation suggested that for the U.S. to adequately police Iraq, it would have needed to have nearly 500,000 troops inside Iraq and draw on a manpower pool of close to 2.5 million - nearly 1 million more troops than the U.S. had in its entire military (including the Air Force and Navy) at the time of the invasion.

Of all the vehicles to bring democratic governments to Iraq and Afghanistan - nations that have not known functional, let alone liberal, governing institutions for decades - the U.S. military was spectacularly unsuited. The only example in recent U.S. history of post-war military occupations delivering allied democratic governments (Germany and Japan) were preceded by unimaginable devastation and loss of life - destruction on a scale that would never have been countenanced for either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Most commentators and theorists have gazed into the maw of post-war Iraq and concluded that the U.S. needs an Army capable of waging counter-insurgencies against lightly armed guerilla forces: a constabulary Army with a civilian infrastructure modeled on the British Colonial Office. But one can just as easily conclude that the Iraq war should simply never have been fought. One can argue that Iraq did not expose the folly of military transformation, but the folly using militarily power unnecessarily and then insisting on the unreasonable political objective of installing a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Even in Afghanistan, where the U.S. was legitimately compelled to act, the dynamic is similar. The "failure" is not insufficient boots on the ground, but political objectives for the country, which are at odds with America's capabilities and available resources and tangential to her interests.

While campaigning for the presidency, George Bush made two national security promises: to transform the military into a 21st century force and to avoid nation-building. At least he kept one of them.

Agreed. As I've written about many many times, US military planning needs to go in two separate directions. The warfighting component needs to be transformed, continuing the work begun by Rumsfeld. The counter-insurgency and nation-building forces need to be separated from the warfighting forces. Doing this will ensure that the US remains the unparalleled military power of the 21st century, dissuading any potential rival from challenging the current balance of power, while providing the US with the tools it needs to deal with the new problems posed by nation-building, intervention, and stability operations.

#3: India
On October 8, 2008, President Bush signed the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act. It was the capstone of a feverish, controversial effort by both the U.S. President and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Though the deal was ostensibly a technical agreement on civilian nuclear trade, in truth it was part of a broader effort to forge closer ties between the world's most populous, multi-ethnic democracies.

Great power relations fell out of favor in the aftermath of 9/11, as the spotlight shone on the role of non-state actors. But getting those relationships right remains the key to U.S. - indeed, global - security. Having shed its statist economy, India, with China, has taken its place among the world's major economic powers. While uncertainty persists regarding the trajectory of China, the U.S. shares a number of key interests with India, from counter-terrorism and free trade to the stability of Pakistan. As former Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns remarked, "this partnership will be for the 21st century one of the most important partnerships that our country, the United States, has with any country around the world. I would wager that in 20 or 30 years time most Americans will say that India is one of our two or three most important partners worldwide."

India was also the scene of some of the Bush administration's most deft diplomacy. On December 13, 2001, gunmen linked to Pakistani militant groups attacked the Indian Parliament, precipitating a tense stand-off between Pakistan and India. Both nations mobilized their militaries along the Line of Control and the specter of a nuclear exchange hung ominously in the air. Yet behind the scenes diplomacy by the Bush administration, led by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, was crucial in defusing tensions.

Again, right on the money. Getting the Indian nuclear deal completed was a major foreign policy success and one that should be emulated with other states, namely Pakistan. While it's fine and good to insist on upholding the moral and legal norms of nonproliferation, the weaknesses of global enforcement means that pragmatism must trump normative adherence. Getting the Indian nuclear program under international inspection regimes was absolutely vital. As India continues to grow in power, it will be able to play an increasingly important role in the world. The US needs to help India grow into that role in a manner befitting a democratic nation.

#2: China
On April 1, 2001, not even three months into his presidency, George W. Bush found himself in a treacherous predicament. A U.S. EP-3 spy plane, flying over the South China Sea, collided with a Chinese military jet and was forced to land on China's Hainan Island.

A tense 10-day period followed as China held the 24-person crew while the two sides negotiated a resolution. Finally, the U.S. offered up an "apology" that satisfied China. The statement, released only in English, expressed that the U.S. was "very sorry" for the death of the Chinese pilot and the plane's landing in Chinese territory. The Chinese took liberty with the translation and scored some "face" points with its domestic audience. The American crew was released and the plane returned a few months later.

In the seven-plus years hence, the Bush administration has continued an uncanny nimbleness in dealing with China, which was growing into a super-power-in-waiting and the world's third-largest economy. Although China opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and blocked a few other U.S.-sponsored actions in the UN, for the most part, the U.S. has maintained a mutually constructive relationship with China - and not at the expense of other regional allies such as Japan and South Korea.

It was a far cry from an adversarial approach many had envisioned before Bush took office. Bush had campaigned on the basis that China would be treated as a "strategic competitor" instead of a "strategic partner" as it was during the Clinton era. Without a doubt, 9/11 necessitated a reassessment of U.S. relations with China, as the U.S. had more pressing security concerns. Also, the growing U.S.-China trade required both sides to seek more accomodations, not confrontations.

The Bush administration was particularly adroit in handling a potentially explosive situation across the Taiwan Strait. The Bush years ran almost concurrently with the presidency of Taiwan's Chen Shui-bian, who made it his business to endlessly provoke China with incessant rhetoric toward "independence." As Taiwan's security guarantor and arms supplier, the U.S. dealt with Chen smartly by exerting pressure both publicly and privately. The administration's handling of Taiwan allowed China to step back and calmed the tensions without sacrificing Taiwan's vital interests. With help from Taiwan's voters in 2008, the prospects for sustained peace across the strait have improved dramatically.

Bush hoped to liberalize China by opting for pragmatism and engagement - in that regard, the results were a mixed bag. Under current president Hu Jintao, China's record on human rights and religious and press freedom has not improved appreciably. But even to the very end, Bush chose diplomacy over grandstanding, most symbolically by accepting Hu's invitation to attend the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

The transformation that has been occurring in China is truly remarkable to watch. China today is a much less threatening state that it was 10 years ago. Economic and political engagement must continue unabated to ensure that as China grows it accepts rather than seeks to challenge the status quo. Hopefully, the anti-trade posture of Obama so far will not extend across the Pacific and undermine what has become a promising relationship.

#1: Africa
"The Bush regime has been divisive — but not in Africa. I read it has been incompetent — but not in Africa. It has created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives."

So wrote singer and political activist Bob Geldof, remarking on the often overlooked legacy President Bush has built in the continent of Africa. Geldof - well known for his Live Aid and Live 8 concerts - isn't alone in his praise for the 43rd President. Among those Africa activists who, albeit reservedly, have praised the departing executive is Bono, U2 front-man and well known advocate on matters of African poverty and disease. "It is amazing what President Bush has done on AIDS ... to put AIDS third on the bill in a State of the Union speech by a conservative president was unthinkable a few years ago," said Bono in a 2003 interview.

Such praise might be news to the casual observer of the Bush years, and understandably so. Eight years, two increasingly unpopular war fronts and a weak economy are bound to obscure any president's positive works. Marred by his questionable invasion - and subsequent management - of Iraq, President Bush has had his good deeds obscured in Africa. Where his other foreign policy endeavors have been riddled with missteps and miscalculations, George W. Bush's African efforts have come about as close to a pure foreign policy success story as one two-term president could ever hope to get. While the president has become a reviled and clownish caricature in other parts of the world, he has enjoyed the opposite throughout much of Africa.

And with good reason. President Bush's emergency AIDS plan for Africa was possibly the largest health investment ever of its kind. In addition to AIDS spending, Bush quietly tripled the amount of overall U.S. aid to some of Africa's poorest countries. His efforts to address other deadly diseases, according to some activists and experts, have saved hundreds of thousands of African lives. The President's efforts have also cut incidence of Malaria by half in over a dozen African countries.

Tackling tough political matters in the region, President Bush moved the proverbial ball on genocide in Darfur, earning him rare praise from groups like Human Rights Watch. In Liberia, he helped facillitate the removal (and eventual arrest) of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, and his administration has played an active role in resolving instability in Kenya.

His critics, rightly or wrongly, have been quick to point out upheaval in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as cases for indictment of Bush's African initiative. This view, while not lacking in certain merits, is perhaps too cynical when discussing Africa. Centuries of colonization, de-colonization, oppression, poverty and disease have left the continent a far too daunting policy challenge for any one president to tackle. And some, for various reasons, have done more than others in the time granted them by the American people.

For Africa, it's been a good eight years.

Many people, myself included, would have liked to see the administration do even more in Darfur and Zimbabwe. But those are very hard cases indeed. Under Bush, the US has paid more attention to Africa than ever before and has done far more good. One could easily add the Millennium Challenge Account to this success, which radicaly altered the way the US distributes foreign aid and has driven many African states to pay more attention to such metrics as governmental transparency, educational opportunities for girls, management of natural resources, and access to land. Bush's legacy in Africa should not be overshadowed, as it will hopefully pave the way for more and better programs that can make a serious different in the most often ignored part of the world.

Certainly, the fact that the US has not been attacked since 9/11 -- something that few analysts would have bet on back in 2001 -- must be labelled a success as well. For whatever reason, al Qaeda has not been able to successfully attack the US, and Bush must be given some credit for that. Obviously, Iraq and Afghanistan and works in progress.

Bush's failures are many, and there are enough other analysts writing about them that I see no need to do so. But we must give credit where credit is due.

The Great Continuity

2009-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama ran his campaign on a platform of hope and change, capitalizing on a surge of antipathy for a president who had immersed the US in two wars, overseen the greatest decline of the domestic economy since the Great Depression, and sullied the good name of the country through expansions of executive power, accusations of torture, and aggressive unilateralist foreign policies.

So why is it looking more and more like President Obama will, indeed, continue many of soon-to-be-ex-President Bush's policies?

Take a close look at the confirmation hearing for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Senator John Kerry asks her:

Is it the policy of the incoming administration, as a bottom line of our security interests and our policy, that it is unacceptable that Iran has a weapon under any circumstances and that we will take any steps necessary to prevent that? Or is it simply not desirable?

Clinton responds:

The president-elect has said repeatedly it is unacceptable. It is going to be United States policy to pursue diplomacy with all of its multitudinous tools to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. As I also said, no option is off the table. [Emphases added]

"No option is off the table" is diplo-speak for "we reserve the right to use military force." So, in essence, Clinton claims that the Obama administration will use diplomacy, sanctions, and the not-so-veiled threat of force to try to get Iran to back away from the development of nuclear weapons. That would be little different than Bush's approach, especially in his second administration.

Of course, the proof will be in the pudding. But so far few signs are pointing to any radical shifts in foreign policy as of Tuesday, Jan. 20. US forces will begin withdrawing from Iraq according to the strategic logic of the Status of Forces Agreement and in consultation with the military officials, not according to the absurd time frame established by Obama during the campaign. There may be some more movement on the issue of Darfur (according to Clinton she has "spoken about other options, no fly zones, other sanctions and sanctuaries, looking to deploy the U.N. A.U. force to try to protect the refugees, but also to repel the militias"), but I'm not betting on much there. Global warming and climate change may be a bigger priority, but that will run into the same giant collective actions that undermine the Kyoto Protocol. Guantanamo Bay may be closed, but Obama will still have to create some mechanism by which to hold and try those being held there. All in all, I expect to see a lot of continuity between the foreign policies of Bush and Obama.

Israel's Impending Victory in Gaza

2009-01-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I wondered what Israel was hoping to accomplish with its assault on Gaza. Today's it's still not clear, not even to Israel's government which is still debating whether to make a total push into Gaza's cities, a move which would signal an attempt to destroy Hamas as a governing body. Meanwhile, as people warn that Israel's attack on Hamas will only result in strengthening the group, rocket attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel seem to confirm that warning as many see the rockets as a message from a Hezbollah that emerged from its own war with Israel stronger than it was before.

But not so fast.

Hezbollah is adamantly denying that it has anything to do with the rockets being launched from Lebanon. That's not the move of an empowered nationalistic militia; that's the move of a group that, despite its propaganda claims to the contrary, suffered a massive beating in its war with Israel. Hezbollah likely lost more than 500 soldiers in ground fighting with Israel while Israel lost 30 soldiers (Israel lost about 10o total soldiers). Furthermore, Hezbollah's rocket attacks, in which Hezbollah launched around 4,000 rockets into Israel, killed 43 Israelis civilians and wounded more than 4,000. While it's true that the impact of the rocket attacks cannot be measured purely in casualties, it's also true that 5-1 loss ratios and the use of a large part of its arsenal to kill 40 civilians cannot really be seen as a military victory in any sense. Furthermore, the political fallout borne by Hezbollah for antagonizing Israel and endangering Lebanon seems to have been very heavy. And now we're seeing the results of the Israeli operation, as Hezbollah despites its blustery claims of Palestinian solidarity is not only NOT opening a second front, it is taking great pains to ensure that Israel does not turn its might against Lebanon again.

If the invasion of Lebanon was enough to reestablish a modicum of deterrence against Hezbollah, can the Gaza campaign do the same vis-a-vis Hamas? A wide campaign against Hamas's strategic assets, government facilities, and underground tunnels may very well cripple Hamas's ability to not only attack Israel but to provide the services for Gaza that have advanced Hamas's political agenda and brought it to power as a viable alternative to Fatah. Hamas's victory in Gaza was not only a result of its aggressive stance against Israel but also a rejection of the corruption and ineffectiveness of Fatah. But if Hamas loses the capability to threaten Israel, cannot effectively defend itself or the people of Gaza, and sees its ability to govern destroyed, the Palestinian people very well may turn back to Fatah.

It is for this reason that it is imperative, as I wrote in my last post, for Israel to make clear the benefits that can be had for adhereing to the path that Fatah has chosen. As I wrote, "Israel should immediately announce a halt to all funding for settlement building in the West Bank, dismantle all illegal settlements, and lift all but the most necessary checkpoints and roadblocks that have made life in the West Bank so difficult." Doing so in the midst of the war against Hamas will announce in no uncertain terms Israel's commitment to a peaceful, two-state solution so long as there is a willing and able partner among the Palestinians.

In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, Edward Luttwak writes "Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens, but then so did Hezbollah in 2006. And yet, for the most part, Hezbollah remains immobile and the Israeli northern border with Lebanon remains quiet. If Israel can achieve the same with Hamas in Gaza, it would be a significant victory." But we must not be fooled by rhetoric and propaganda. Israel's invasion of Lebanon was definitely a success, and whether Gaza is as well will not be judged by Hamas's empty claims of victory.

What's the End Game in Gaza?

2008-12-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

As the Israeli assault on Gaza continued into its fourth day, it's not at all clear what end state Israel is seeking. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert released a statement that the aerial campaign was "the first of several stages" suggesting that a ground operation may be forthcoming, while international pressure mounts for a temporary cease-fire to allow for humanitarian aid and assistance. So far, an estimated 350 Palestinians have been killed -- more than 60 of them civilians -- and more than 600 wounded, while the rocket barrages from Hamas killed three Israelis on Monday. Israel's stated war aims have been quite narrow -- to destroy the ability of Hamas to launch rockets into Israel -- and there are no overt signs that Israel intends to seek the destruction of the Hamas regime. Internal intelligence assessments in Israel claim to have destroyed so far one-third of Hamas's rocket arsenal.

So what outcome does Israel seek? What is Israel hoping to achieve through this assault? First, Israel is very likely seeking to restore its reputation after the debacle of the 2006 Lebanon War. While that war was on balance better for Israel than many people perceived it to be, it is perception that matters for Israel's deterrence posture. Seccond, while the rockets launched into Israel by Hamas may not be particularly effective in killing Israelis, they are extremely effective at highlighting Israel's defenselessness. No government anywhere in the world could long survive under constant rocket attack, even if few casualties resulted, as a government that is seen as unable to protect its people cannot be effective. Given the alternative of a Netanyahu-led Likud government (which most Israeli polls show to be the likely outcome of the February elections), the centrist-Kadima government had to respond to demonstrate its ability to protect the people of Israel and hold on to power. The Israeli response very well may strengthen the Labor Party and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (currently Israel's minister of defense).

But these goals are strategic, higher-order goals that while perhaps important are not directly tied to current assault. What outcome does Israel want vis-a-vis Hamas and Gaza? Destroying the rockets is one, but that is an ephemeral goal. Destroyed rockets can be resupplied. Toppling Hamas is another possibility, but that could be exceedingly dangerous. Fatah has been largely routed in Gaza, and if Hamas is brought down it's not at all clear what would replace it. Anarchy in Gaza may be even worse for Israel than Hamas.

What is more likely is that Israel is seeking two goals, one short-term and one long-term. In the short-term Israel is likely hoping to force Hamas to accept cease-fire terms that are more favorable than the one that recently ended. While Israel certainly didn't entirely uphold its end of the agreement by failing to allow sufficient supplies into Gaza, Hamas didn't carry its weight either by refusing to crack down on militants launching rockets, particularly in recent days. In the long-run, Israel may be hoping to expose Hamas as ineffective in its responses to Israel and incapable of protecting and providing for the welfare of the Palestinians.

The problem is, perhaps, that Hamas's popularity may have been waning before the assault. As Daoud Kuttab writes in today's Washington Post, Hamas has been on a steady decline since coming to power on Gaza:

Things began to sour when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza, but even then, Hamas enjoyed considerable domestic support -- and much goodwill externally. Then the movement turned down every legitimate offer from its nationalist PLO rivals and Egyptian mediators to pursue reconciliation, and support for it began to slip.
Things got worse in November when a carefully planned national unity effort from the Egyptians failed because, at the very last minute, Hamas's leaders refused to show up in Cairo. Failure to accept this roundtable invitation greatly upset the Egyptians, and they and other Arab leaders scolded Hamas publicly. Omar Suleiman, the head of the Egyptian intelligence service who was organizing the meeting, termed Hamas's reasons for rebuffing the invitation "unwarranted excuses." Hamas sought for its leader a seating position equivalent to the Palestinian president's, and it wanted Hamas security prisoners held in the West Bank to be released. Palestinian nationalists insist that Hamas's rejection of unity talks was solely to avoid the PLO's demand for new presidential and parliamentary elections.
A poll carried out afterward by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center showed that most Palestinians blamed Hamas for the failure of the talks. The survey, which was sponsored by the German Fredrich Ebert Foundation, found that 35.3 percent of respondents believed Hamas bore more responsibility for the stalemate. Fatah was blamed by 17.9 percent, and 12.3 percent said both Fatah and Hamas were responsible.
The lack of international support since the 2006 elections, followed by this rebuff to Gaza's only Arab neighbor, Egypt, compounded the deterioration of Hamas's internal support. By November, the survey showed, only 16.6 percent of Palestinians supported Hamas, compared with nearly 40 percent favoring Fatah. The decline in support for Hamas has been steady: A year earlier, the same pollster showed that Hamas's support was at 19.7 percent; in August 2007, it was at 21.6 percent; in March 2007, it was at 25.2 percent; and in September 2006, backing for the Islamists stood at 29.7 percent.

Now, Kuttab writes, Hamas will reap the PR benefits of the Israeli assault, once again assuming the mantle of The Ones Who Stand Up To Israel and:

has renewed its standing in the Arab world, secured international favor further afield and succeeded in scuttling indirect Israeli-Syrian talks and direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. While it is not apparent how this violent confrontation will end, it is abundantly clear that the Islamic Hamas movement has been brought back from near political defeat while moderate Arab leaders have been forced to back away from their support for any reconciliation with Israel."

Israel must act to counter this development, largely by pointing to conditions in the West Bank. But pointing is not enough. Israel should move to improve conditions in the West Bank, and not just ones that amount to cosmetic changes. Rather, Israel needs to make clear the benefits of following Fatah's path as well as the consequences of following that of Hamas.

Israel should immediately announce a halt to all funding for settlement building in the West Bank, dismantle all illegal settlements, and lift all but the most necessary checkpoints and roadblocks that have made life in the West Bank so difficult. Only by making clear the implications of the choices before the Palestinians can Israel hope to obtain any long-term benefits from the attack on Gaza.

Rebuilding the US Military

2008-12-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, the New York Times ran an editorial entitled "How to Pay for a 21st Century Military." The editorial made several suggestions about how to pare down current defense expenditures to pay for the changes needed to update the US military for the challenges of the coming years, challenges that include, in the words of the Times, "more ground forces, less reliance on the Reserves, new equipment and training to replace cold-war weapons systems and doctrines."

Here are the suggestions with analysis:

End production of the Air Force’s F-22. The F-22 was designed to ensure victory in air-to-air dogfights with the kind of futuristic fighters that the Soviet Union did not last long enough to build. The Air Force should instead rely on its version of the new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which comes into production in 2012 and like the F-22 uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar. Until then, it can use upgraded versions of the F-16, which can outperform anything now flown by any potential foe. The F-35 will provide a still larger margin of superiority. The net annual savings: about $3 billion.

Not a bad idea. But the F-35 isn't quite an adequate replacement for the F-22. The F-35 is designed to be more of a multi-use fighter, a la the F-15, while the F-22 is a pure air superiority plane, much like the F-16. It's not entirely clear whether the F-35 will be up to the task of air superiority. The multi-service nature of the F-35, however, was an excellent choice and makes the F-35 an excellent bargain. The question is, however, whether the US can afford to put all of its eggs in one basket or, in this case, in one weapons platform. US air superiority is a major priority and a vital part of all US military operations and if the F-35 fails to perform up to expectations, the absence of another platform would be a huge problem. However, the cost of the F-22 and the absence of any serious rival platforms probably makes this a worthy cut.

Cancel the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer. This is a stealthy blue water combat ship designed to fight the kind of midocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. The Navy can rely on the existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, a powerful, well-armed ship that incorporates the advanced Aegis combat system for tracking and destroying multiple air, ship and submarine targets. The Navy has sharply cut back the number of Zumwalts on order from 32 to two. Cutting the last two could save more than $3 billion a year that should be used to buy more of the littoral combat ships that are really needed. Those ships can move quickly in shallow offshore waters and provide helicopter and other close-in support for far more likely ground combat operations.

From a techie-standapoint, it would be a true shame if the Navy cancels the DDG-1000 project, as it is possibly the coolest naval platform ever designed. But, the fact that the Navy has already trimmed its order from 32 to 2 is a clear indication that the Navy doesn't really see the need to fight blue-water engagements and is rather continuing the program as corporate charity and to recoup some of the sunk costs. However, recent concerns over piracy off the Horn of Africa have made clear the need to maintain some kind of ocean-going attack force. But that need not involve the DDG-1000.

Halt production of the Virginia class sub. Ten of these unneeded attack submarines — modeled on the cold-war-era Seawolf, whose mission was to counter Soviet attack and nuclear launch submarines — have already been built. The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business. The Navy can extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet. Net savings: $2.5 billion.

The Times is right that building the Virginia-class subs is little more than a jobs program to keep sub-building shipyards open. But that is enough of a reason not to cancel this program. It is imperative that the US retain sub-building capability and there is little civilian demand for submarines, the military must continue to purchase platforms to keep the yards open. Furthermore, the Virginia-class subs are designed for littoral warfare as well as blue-water operations, meaning that they will be capable of performing numerous varied missions, including anti-sub warfare, mine-laying, special operations, and intelligence gathering. Given recent news of Chinese interest in building aircraft carriers and Russian naval missions to South America, the US needs to maintain its naval dominance.

Pull the plug on the Marine Corps’s V-22 Osprey. After 25 years of trying, this futuristic and unnecessary vertical takeoff and landing aircraft has yet to prove reliable or safe. The 80 already built are more than enough. Instead of adding 400 more, the Marine Corps should buy more of the proven H-92 and CH-53 helicopters. Net savings: $2 billion to 2.5 billion.

No argument here.

Halt premature deployment of missile defense. The Pentagon wants to spend roughly $9 billion on ballistic missile defense next year. That includes money to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska and build new installations in central Europe. After spending some $150 billion over the past 25 years, the Pentagon has yet to come up with a national missile defense system reliable enough to provide real security. The existing technology can be easily fooled by launching cheap metal decoys along with an incoming warhead. We do not minimize the danger from ballistic missiles. We agree there should be continued testing and research on more feasible approaches. Since the most likely threat would come from Iran or North Korea, there should be serious discussions with the Russians about a possible joint missile defense program. (We know the system poses no threat to Russia, but it is time to take away the excuse.) A research program would cost about $5 billion annually, for a net savings of nearly $5 billion.

I have long argued on this site for cutting missile defense in favor of other programs.

Negotiate deep cuts in nuclear weapons. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia committed to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 each by 2012. There has been no discussion of any further cuts. A successor treaty should have significantly lower limits — between 1,000 and 1,400, with a commitment to go lower. President-elect Barack Obama should also take all ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert and commit to reducing the nation’s absurdly large stock of backup warheads. These steps will make the world safer. It will give Mr. Obama a lot more credibility to press others to rein in their nuclear ambitions. It is hard to say just how much money would be saved with these reductions, but in the long term, the amount would certainly be considerable.

No argument here.

Trim the active-duty Navy and Air Force. The United States enjoys total dominance of the world’s seas and skies and will for many years to come. The Army and the Marines have proved too small for the demands of simultaneous ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are the forces most likely to be called on in future interventions against terrorist groups or to rescue failing states. Reducing the Navy by one carrier group and the Air Force by two air wings would save about $5 billion a year. Making these cuts will not be politically easy. The services are already talking up remote future threats (most involving a hostile China armed to the teeth with submarines and space-age weapons). Military contractors invoke a different kind of threat: hundreds of thousands of layoffs in a recession-weakened economy. We are all for saving and creating jobs, but not at the cost of diverting finite defense dollars from real and pressing needs — or new programs that will create new jobs.

Under no circumstances should the US eliminate a carrier group. US carriers are not only a vital projector of military might, but also serve as a powerful signal of US commitment. Whenever there is an impending crisis, it is always a carrier group that signals US interest and provides a powerful warning. Plus, as it becomes harder and more exepensive for the US to maintain its vast networks of overseas forward basing, carriers serve as irreplaceable mobile bases. The Air Force is a better candidate to be reduced, but given the recommendation to end the F-22 program, any cuts will have to be carefully made to not undermine the US ability to carry out the primary missions: lift and carry, air superiority, strategic bombing, and close air support.

How would the Times use the money saved:

The cuts above could save $20 billion to $25 billion a year, which could be better used as follows:
Increase the size of the ground force. The current buildup of the Army and the Marine Corps will cost more than $100 billion over the next six years. Trimming the size of the Navy and Air Force, deferring the deployment of unready missile defenses and canceling the Osprey will pay for much of that.

Pay for the Navy’s needed littoral combat ships. These ships, which operate in shallow waters to support ground combat, cost about $600 million each. Canceling the DDG-1000 destroyer (more than $3 billion per ship) and the Virginia class submarine (more than $2 billion each) will help provide that needed money.

Resupply the National Guard and the Reserves. At the present rate for replacing weapons left behind or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guard will still be more than 20 percent short of what it needs in 2013. Canceling the F-22 will provide enough money to do better than that years sooner.

Again, we need to be very careful in transforming the Army and Marine Corps. While it is vital that such changes are made to develop greater capabilities for counter-insurgency and nation-building operations, such changes cannot come at the expense of traditional warfighting. Furthermore, the two missions should be separated; soldiers should not be trained to do both.

President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates will have an excellent opportunity to make some much needed changes to the US military as the war in Iraq winds down and the taks of repairing the military begins. But such changes cannot be made purely based on assessments of the present or future military environment. It must be realized that the absence of any military competitors and the near impossibility of great power war is not an accident nor a reason to draw down the military. It is US military dominance that has made the thought of large-scale international war largely unthinkable and that dominance must be maintained.

Obama's Bad Move on Trade

2008-12-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

Reuters is reporting that President-elect Obama has settled on former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to be US Trade Representative. This does not bode well. Obama's first choice, California Representive Xavier Becerra reportedly turned down the job because Obama wasn't planning on making trade a priority of his administration:

"My concern is how much weight this position would have had, and I reached the conclusion that it would not be a top priority or even a second or third priority," Becerra told La Opinion, a Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper, in an interview earlier this week.

With the Doha round of WTO talks stalled, hopefully to resume in 2009, it is imperative that trade be made a priority so the impasses over intellecutal property and agricultural subsidies can be broken. Nominating someone to USTR with zero trade experience and with lowered priority is not a good sign. Furthermore, Reuters reports that Obama's first trade priority will be "to make good on Obama's promise to add stronger labor and environmental provisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact often blamed by labor groups for moving U.S. jobs to Mexico."

All of this bodes very badly. Obama's anti-trade rhetoric during the campaign bordered on protectionist, and was often down-right scary. Re-opening NAFTA would be a disastrous move, making other states less likely to sign agreements with the US for fear that they would be re-opened in the future, undoing all the hard negotiating on the original agreement. Many people claimed that Obama's talk on trade was just that: talk. The hope was Obama was spouting protectionist rhetoric to win the election and that once president he would adopt a saner approach to free trade. Such hopes were bolstered by top economic adviser Austin Goolsbee's comment in Canada that Obama's anti-NAFTA positions "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."

But the closer it gets to inauguration day, the more it looks like Obama was serious in his rhetoric.

The Manama Dialogue 2008: US Secretary of Defense Gates on the Problem of Piracy

2008-12-18T10:09:00.000-08:00