Of Chicken Salad and Chicken Shit

January 23, 2009 — Jon

Ryan Crocker has poopy in his pants:

BAGHDAD, Jan. 22 — Ryan C. Crocker, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq, warned Thursday that a precipitous withdrawal of American troops runs “some very serious risks,” from the resurgence of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq to a collapse of faith in a nascent Iraqi state that still faces what he called “enormous challenges.”

A loss of confidence, Crocker said, could create a “chilling effect,” where people “pull back, dig the trenches, build the berms and get ready for what comes next. I’m not saying that that would happen; but I am saying these are dangers that could happen.”

Look, AQI was essentially formed — and gained power — in direct response to U.S. troop presence in Iraq. If we leave, AQI will lose its animus. But this is essentially secondary to larger flaws with neoconservative thinking on Iraq.

Namely, of primary concern is that continued military presence, and especially one that supports a certain regime, will necessarily forge unstable political situations because they are predicated on the unsure assumption of continued U.S. support. Establishing a stable polity in Iraq will  mean reconciling differences currently held at bay by the U.S. military.

Beyond even this animating problem though, one thing you have to come to terms with is that accepting sub-optimal outcomes goes with the terroritory of horrible misguided military interventions. That means, as Crocker suggests, increased Iranian influence in the region and a government who isn’t a “beacon of democracy.” Democrats and liberals would be wise to be vigilant in reminding people that bad policies will yield bad outcomes; expecting a “transformation” in the Middle East was unrealistic.

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24-eign Policy

January 13, 2009 — Jon

Ok, so I promise this will be the last post spent analyzing 24, but I just want to gripe again about the way the show presents foreign policy. President Taylor — the sympathetic character — seems to hew to the liberal interventionist tradition, which in gaining currency as a misguided rhetorical tool against George Bush’s neoconservatism occasionally became mistaken for mainstream liberal foreign policy. The argument basically followed that if we were going to undertake ostensibly humanitarian missions in Iraq, then why were we not unilaterally invade Darfur or Myanmar? Obviously, this is most effective as a form of calling Bush’s bluff, but as a foreign policy, is a truly daft. After all, if you thought invading Iraq was a bad idea, it makes more sense to oppose Iraq-like invasions than it does to advocate for even more unilateral invasions, but just under more morally sound pretenses.

Anyway, this is highlighted quite perfectly when President Allison Taylor — notice the syllabic similarity to Hillary Clinton? — is confronted with the decision of whether unilatarly invading Sangala to stop ethnic conflict is worth risking the lives of thousands of innocent American civilians. I mean, are you fucking joking? Is that even a decision? Clearly, you act to save the lives of the American civilians who put your dumb ass in office. Jesus, problem solved. Meanwhile, her Chief of Staff, who advocates the realist view (“super powers act in their own best interest”), is made to look like a heartless asshole. Would it be too much to ask to have just one sympathetic character on that show who isn’t a complete fucking moron?

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Guantana-no-mo

January 13, 2009 — Jon

Apparently Barack Obama has plans to close Guantanamo Bay on Day One (or at least issue the order):

President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.

But experts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp.

As I’ve mentioned before, the biggest issue with Guantanamo was not that it broke international law, it’s that it was a public symbol of the abandonment of the freedoms for which the U.S. putatively stood. That is, it’s a pretty banal observation that the U.S. government has engaged in some pretty shady activity in the past, but the difference was that it didn’t flaunt the behavior, nor did was it done on such a large scale. This is actually an important distinction insofar as the international community is concerned, and it’s a step in the right direction that Obama plans to shut it down. Step two will be shutting down Guantanamo in Afghanistan and dismantling the military commissions.

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Friends Don’t Let Friends…

January 8, 2009 — Jon

Things Steve Walt says about Israel should of course be taken with a grain of salt, but nevertheless, I think this point is well adduced in dismantling the “pro” or “anti” Israel debate.

The current President Bush is often described as the most “pro-Israel” President in history. Yet his policies have helped make Hamas stronger and more popular, and his cheerleading for Israel’s ill-advised war in Lebanon in 2006 ended up costing more Israeli lives and left Hezbollah in a stronger position in Lebanon. His policies also facilitated settlement expansion and made a two-state solution harder to achieve, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 ended up improving Iran’s strategic position, which is hardly good for Israel. All this reinforces a point I made a few days ago: it is high time to redefine what “pro-Israel” means.

This quite right, and I’ll add that the tacit assumption underlying “pro” Israel support is that providing carte blanche to misguided Israeli endeavors is that US “permission” is more appropriately described as “money”, and ultimately, “involvement.” The more blindly the US supports a hawkish Israeli foreign policy, the more likely eventual US involvement becomes. Of course, this isn’t an entirely undesirable consequence for neoconservatives, who I’m sure would relish the opportunity to bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran, but the more saner of us should better recognizer the perils of this current policy. Even if involvement grows short of direct military assitance, it most certainly will mean increased military aid, which will in turn descrease the likelihood of peaceful solutions for US foreign policy goals in the area.

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Afghan COIN

December 24, 2008 — Jon

So it seems the US and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have agreed to import some of the tactics that reduced violence in Iraq.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, American commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban. But along with hope, the move is raising fears here that the new armed groups could push the country into a deeper bloodletting. …

… The formation of Afghan militias comes on the heels of a similar undertaking in Iraq, where 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, have been placed on the government payroll. The Awakening Councils, as they are known, are credited by American officials as one of the main catalysts behind the steep reduction in violence there.

All good, right?

But the plan is causing deep unease among many Afghans, who fear that Pashtun-dominated militias could get out of control, terrorize local populations and turn against the government. The Afghan government, aided by the Americans, has carried out several ambitious campaigns since 2001 to disarm militants and gather up their guns. A proposal to field local militias was defeated in the Afghan Senate in the fall.

I imagine there were similar concerns about paying former insurgents to provide security in Iraq, but the situation in Iraq was also quite a bit different. For one, the Awakening essentially put Sunni insurgents on the US payroll, basically paying them to stop fighting. In Afghanistan, the correlating group would be in fact members of the Taliban. Second, the uptick of violence in Iraq during 2006-2007 largely resulted from sectarian conflict, most of which took place in Baghdad. In Afghanistan, the problem is a bit different. The Talbian in Afghanistan is much more diffuse, and further complicating matters, is based in Pakistan.

In addition, the Taliban’s resurgence owes quite a bit to the corrupt the Karzai government. Where the Karzai government fails to provide order (incidentally, most everywhere), the Taliban occupies the de facto power vacuum. Arming tribesman will not ameliorate this situation, and neither will boosting US troop presence. Rather, the US needs to expand and foster the development of institutions of civil society.

Of course, this is much easier said than done, and all things considered, this seems to be a step in the right direction. We’ll see how it turns out.

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Rick Warren Round Up

December 18, 2008 — Jon

So certainly there’s some justified indignation, but Marc Ambinder has an instructive post:

In his short political career, Obama has deftly manipulated political symbols to his advantage, but he’s never been one to pay homage to one of the most sacred regulations of identity politics, which is that one must take care of one’s own kind before turning outward.  His mind operates differently. Obama does believe, as many of his supporters do, that there are uncrossable demarcation lines between the reasonable and the profane. But he doesn’t believe that Warren, someone he admires for reaching outside his (Warren’s) comfort zone on AIDS, is all that different from himself.  Obama is simultaneously capable of admiring Warren while disdaining Warren’s oogedy boogedy appraoch to gay relationships and his uninformed response to torture. Warren’s views might be hurtful to gays; Obama does not think they are harmful.

Ambinder’s right to suggest Obama ahem, blew the politics of this particular decision, but you can see how the decision fits within the broader framework of his political instincts. On the other hand, I tend to sympathize with this argument as well.

Warren also supports the assassination of foreign leaders. Appearing on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes on December 3, Warren agreed with Sean Hannity’s assertion that “we need to take him [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out,” saying that stopping evil “is the legitimate role of government.” He added, “The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers.”

A lot of observers tend to view rhetoric coming from foreign leaders — and especially of those in Iran — as adducing a radical extremism and general implacability. It evinces some pretty blinkered thinking then not to realize that elevating the views of a guy like Warren sends the wrong message.

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Crack-Pot City

December 4, 2008 — Jon

Via Matt Duss, I learn that Pastor Rick Warren believes the bible grants governments the authority to kill “ever-doers” like Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadenijad.

Matt sez:

In any case, if this were a conversation between an Iranian TV host and an ayatollah in which they discussed scriptural justifications for “taking out” high ranking members of the U.S. government, you’d probably see Sean Hannity running the clip on his show — while slowly shaking his head in pious disapproval — as evidence of what crazy extremists those Iranians are. As it is, they’ll probably be running this on Iranian TV as evidence of what crazy extremists those Americans are.

Indeed. On a related note, is Sean Hannity really so ignorant he thinks Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a “rogue dictator?” Ahmadenijad would be flattered. In the first place, Ahmadinejad is an elected official — though elections aren’t precisely free in Iran — but more importantly, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei makes every single important decision of government be it through constitutional channels, coercion, corruption, or the Republican Guards. Shit, Ahmadenijad doesn’t even have pretend control of foreign policy. (Rachel Maddow cleverly referred to Ahmadenijad as the “Dana Perino of Iran.”)

Anyway, people are sometimes accused of being hyperbolic with their complains about the evil of Fox News, but it’s almost impossible to believe that someone of Hannity’s stature could actually be ignorant of something like this. Instead, it’s a lot easier to believe that Fox News and Hannity are actively misleading.

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Red Herrings

December 3, 2008 — Jon

The Boston Globe reports on a new White House official that will coordinate WMD non-proliferation efforts across myriad government agencies dealing with the threat. The position is timed with the publishing of a grim report from the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation Wednesday, but it’s worth pointing out this position existed under Bush, he just refused to staff it for fear of subjecting it to Senate approval (thanks, George! Country first!). Anyway, this is all well and good, but it strikes me as sort of missing the point.

The 160-page report…calls for Obama to make it a top priority to stop nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea, using diplomacy backed by credible threat of force; to beef up international efforts to slow the spread of nuclear weapons; and to work with Pakistan to eliminate terrorist safe havens and secure nuclear and biological materials in that country.

Without getting into the problems with “diplomacy backed by a credible threat of force”, it should be noted that Iran already exercises considerable influence not because of it’s conventional military but because of the power afforded by its de facto control of much of the region’s oil supply. So long as oil remains a key catalyst of the international economy, Iran will wield substantial power, nuke or not. North Korea has the capability to produce nuclear weapons (unlike Iran at the moment), but we don’t worry too much about North Korea because it’s incredibly poor and has little strategic importance. I understand the logic, and non-proliferation is quite important, but I feel it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees.

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Fear Itself

December 2, 2008 — Jon

On Saturday, I wrote:

I’ll just make the point that a terrorist attack that arrested the world for over 60 hours resulted in the death of just 162 people (as of now).  Now, I hardly wish to seem insensitive — the attacks were unquestionably tragic for many people — but the fact remains that this is a reminder that international terrorism is more constructively viewed as a small, dangerous, and malign force, but not as an existential threat to civilization…This is not to suggest that combating international terrorism is not a national security imperative, but simply couching the issue as an imminent threat to civilization itself (the “War on Terror”) is an unproductive framework that leads to bad policy making.

Andrew Sullivan — who, ahem, receives in the neighborhood of 30 million pages views a month — points to a few folks who agree. It’s worth noting I think, that this idea is not applicable only to India. That is, contra one of George Bush’s favored aphorisms, 9/11 didn’t fundamentally change the world. Rather, the United States and other countries along for the ride have shifted how they interpret the world so as to totally defenestrate rationality and perspective in favor of sensationalism and a sort of generational narcissism. It’s a tremendously overused cliche, but there really isn’t much to fear but fear itself; the fear that brought us Iraq, the fear that elected George Bush for a second term, and the fear that has led to the abandonment of principle.  Simply put, terrorists don’t have the power or resources to destroy America, only we can do that.

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Lions, Tigers, and WMD, Oh Noes!

December 2, 2008 — Jon

The Washington Post glosses the draft report of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which warns that the likelihood of terrorists securing WMD has substantially increased, particularly from teetering states like Pakistan.

“Without greater urgency and decisive action by the world community, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013,” says the draft report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

The report concludes any such attack is very much a “preventable catastrophe”, and what I’m sure will be much to the chagrin of Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol, suggests strengthening international treaties and institutions as a preventative measure. In particular, the report recommends reengaging the Non-Proliferation Treaty reviled by the Bush Administration, cracking down on illicit trade, stopping weapons development, and rewarding good behavior by helping develop civilian nuclear programs on a quid pro quo basis.

This all seems to be right, though I think the report ought to be a bit more realistic about America’s bargaining position. That is, the U.S. should not only toughen the NPT, but should also reduce our needlessly enormous arsenal and abandon the faulty missile defense shield in Europe. What’s more, we’re simply in no state to be invading Iran unilaterally, nor would we want to invade North Korea, so posturing from a “position of strength” should be replaced with bargaining with good faith intentions of accomplishing something beneficial.

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