I’m not saying this is why President Obama did it, but it does occur to me that today’s joint statement on Iran means that everyone (except Spencer) forgot that Gen. Stanley McCrystal sent his troop and resource request to the Pentagon earlier this afternoon.
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Please check out my latest Care2 post, which looks what a really, really, really crappy week Mahmoud Ahmedinejad just had. Here’s a taste:
Now [the second nuclear facility] is not merely a small building in the desert. Nope. It’s a Dr.-Evil’s-secret-complex-in-the-mountain kind of facility. And the Administration went public at least in part to demonstrate to the Iranians that it had the intelligence capacity to find out about such stuff. In response, Ahmadinejad canceled subsequent media appearances, including a press conference scheduled to take place this afternoon.
Maybe Ahmadinejad can convince the West that it’s an amusement park ride.
You can read the whole thing here.
If you’re curious where the photo comes from, check out my post from last summer about Iran’s secret missile photoshop project.
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Sometimes it’s better to just start with the video (h/t):
Ahmadinejad is a lot of things — a dictator, a liar, a hate-monger, a killer, and a buffoon. Watching him smile while Couric showed him that picture eliminated any doubt in my mind that he is also a very dangerous psychopath.
Kudos to Couric for calling him out and doing it in the most devastating way possible.
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This post is jointly authored by Tanya and Charlie.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave with Osama, you probably know by now that President Obama announced on Thursday that he was ending the so-called “missilie shield” plan devised by his predecessor.
Timing is everything in life, but it looks like the Pentagon and the White House had a meeting of minds. Updated intelligence made it pretty clear that Iran will not soon have the capacity to launch inter-continental ballistic missiles on the U.S.
This was Obama’s first major national security decision outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it further reinforced the widespread perception that he is a hard-headed realist when it comes to foreign policy. That was further reinforced by the fact that Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41’s national security advisor and the most eminent realist in either party, quickly praised the decision:
I strongly approve of President Obama’s decision regarding missile defense deployments in Europe. I believe it advances U.S. national security interests, supports our allies, and better meets the threats we face.
Setting aside the lovely press release-ease for a moment, Scowcroft couldn’t have done much more to help Obama at a time when most conservatives were accusing him of appeasement (more on that later).
But if Scowcroft liked it, the Russians liked it even more. In response, they announced that it would not deploy its Iskander tactical missiles in Kaliningrad — which happens to be just a short flight to Berlin and other popular tourist destinations.Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said he “valued” the U.S. decision; Prime Minister-for-life Vladimir Putin was equally celebratory, saying that he hoped that Obama’s “correct and brave decision [would] be be followed by others.”
The Obama team is not abandoning missile defense altogether; it remains concerned about Iran’s short- and medium-range missile capacity. The White House argues that its new approach will be “stronger, swifter, smarter,” with plans to start deploying existing SM-3 interceptors using the sea-based Aegis system in 2011. An improved version will follow in 2015, using both ship- and land-based systems.
Turkey is one possible home for the 2015 deployment. It remains a strategic player within NATO but it also is friendly with Iran. Coincidentally, Turkey happens to be shopping for long range missile defense systems at the moment, which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with their candidacy. Unless, of course, it does.
(One brief aside: does anyone else note the irony here? Back in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union deployed missiles to Cuba in part because the United States had deployed missiles in Turkey. Ultimately, the crisis was resolved when the two countries agreed on a quid pro quo withdrawal while denying publicly that they were doing any such thing. Now, nearly fifty years later, the Russians are happy to see missiles redeployed to Turkey. Somewhere, Khrushchev and Kennedy are laughing.)
The one surprise is that Albania — yes Albania — is a candidate to host some of the missiles. Not only is Albania now a member of NATO (something that somehow escaped the notice of almost everyone but Albanians), it has 362 kilometers of coastline and four cities with the capacity to host American cruiser and destroyers.
Albania is eager to join the EU , hoping that its membership in NATO will help it make its case (not that that has helped Turkey, which has been a member of NATO since 1952 and is nowhere near EU membership). Sali Berisha, Albania’s ambitious prime minister (and a former communist), no doubt would be delighted to host NATO ships in its ports to shipborne Aegis systems.
The only person not happy is Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who faces a tough reelection battle next year and who had trumpeted the missile shield as evidence of his administration’s ability to defend Poland against Russia. Fakt, a right-wing Polish tabloid sympathetic to Kacynski, screamed “Betrayal! The USA has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back.” Unfortunately for Kaczynski, the Polish people don’t seem to share such sentiments — a new poll released Saturday shows that 48 percent of respondents thought that the Administration’s decision was good for Poland, and only 31 percent disagreed.
The Czechs — the other supposed beneficiaries — were largely indifferent to the news that they would not have a missile shield. This may be in part because the decision to deploy missiles to the Czech Republic was largely designed to reinforce the Bush claim that the system wasn’t aimed at the Russians.
One of the best parts of the White House’s decision was its work behind the scenes to coordinate the decision with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Shortly after the U.S. announcement, Rasmussen called for a new strategic partnership that would entail a “joint review” with Moscow of global security challenges within the NATO framework:
Mr. Rasmussen called on Moscow for a “genuine new beginning in our relationship, in our own interests and that of the entire international community”. Referring to the US missile defense rethink, he said “the new plans will make capabilities ready sooner than the previous plans and will provide us with broader coverage.”
“There is no reason to fear [that] these plans will weaken the defense of any ally. “Improved relations between NATO and Russia will also be to the benefit of our eastern allies,” he said.
Meanwhile, back in Teapartystan, neoconservatives and 9/12 activists came together in a rare show of unity to denounce the White House decision as appeasement. Bloggers and politicians alike dragged out the increasingly hoary Munich metaphor, accusing Obama of caving to both the Russians and the Iranians.
John McCain — the same man who, one year ago, was willing to use U.S. force to prop up a corrupt regime in Georgia — wasn’t much better. He called Obama’s plan “untested” (as opposed to the vaporware that the Bushies were pushing) despite the fact that it is the same Aegis missile technology currently being used on the — wait for it — USS John McCain.
In the end, Obama chose pragmatism, deciding to abandon a fantastic scheme in favor of engagement with Russia — and at the same time, sustaining efforts to contain Iran’s missile capacity. To put it another way, Obama understood the distinction between strategy –building a stable relationship with Russia — and tactics — countering the threat of Iranian medium- and short-range missiles. That’s something the Bush Administration never really got the hang of in its eight years.
Photo: Public domain via Wikipedia
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I’m not sure where this is from — I got it via @rtsadvocate on twitter and the link doesn’t really make it clear where it’s from — but it’s fascinating nonetheless. Facebook is no longer merely a U.S. phenomenon.
Facebook played a minor role in the so-called “Twitter Revolution” in Iran, and activists in Egypt and elsewhere have used it to organize pro-democracy demonstrations. Over the long run, I think that it will prove to be a more effective tool for democracy and human rights activists than Twitter, if only because you can control who your “friends” are better than you can in Twitter (unless, of course, you friend people you don’t know).
Right now, FB remains largely a Western phenomenon. I’d be interested in seeing some of the numbers beyond the west, but it is worthwhile to note that Turkey has more users than any other European country except the U.K.
Right now, I have FB friends in about two dozen countries (I think), and Undip readers include folks from all over the world. I’d be interested in hearing from you in the comments as to whether you use FB, especially if you’re using it to comment on foreign policy/promote democracy/promote human rights.
If you’re a regular reader of Undip and don’t follow me on FB, feel free to do so here, but please indicate that you’re an Undip reader in the message box — otherwise I will wont know who you are and probably will ignore you.
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D.B. Grady over at Atlantic Politics notes that the Twittersphere has forgotten about Iran’s Greens just when they need it the most:
Today, hundreds of protesters are behind bars. It should come as no surprise that harsh treatment and regular beatings are part of the Iranian prison experience. And it’s now reported that the jailed women and young boys are subject to rape and sodomy.
It would be generous to call Twitter a mile wide and an inch deep. Casual usage would measure its depth in atoms, at best. Supporting change in the world is fun, but only as it allows for narcissistic melodrama. It’s hard feel good about yourself when child rape is part of the story. It’s tragic, but not exciting. Celebrity deaths and reality television allow for both.
As for the fearless denizens of Twitter? They’ve moved on to other important news of the day: Lady Gaga. Regis and Kelly. “New Moon.”
Iranians in want of democracy must feel a bit like the Kurds following the Gulf War.
Twitter has proven itself not to be a tool of revolution, or a mechanism of change, but a mirror of the excitability and fickleness of the American zeitgeist. Mousavi was all but forgotten when Michael Jackson fatally overdosed. And on Twitter, Jackson wasn’t just an 80s pop star and plastic surgeon’s paycheck. He became a humanitarian. A great humanitarian. The greatest humanitarian of his day. Again, the Chicago River flowed, only this time it was with the maudlin tears of children who would be denied another Michael Jackson album. And people whose only exposure to “Thriller” was the dance scene in “13 Going on 30″ became aficionados, discussing which b-sides were tragically overlooked.
That’s about right. The reality is that Facebook, Twitter, and other social media aren’t mini-blogs on politics (or even celebrities) as they are mirrors of our own interests. They are narcissism taken to a new level (and yes, I am as guilty of this too, as anyone who reads my tweets or Facebook feed knows). Take a look at the most successful twitter users out there — it’s all about them (or their friends or interesting stories they’ve run across). Making your icon green (which I did, along with thousands if not millions of others) may make you (me) feel good, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to help the Greens now in jail.
Blogging isn’t any different. What, for example, has Grady accomplished? He’s made some folks feel bad that they’ve moved on. And he’s made himself feel good about criticizing them for it. And he’s given me and others the chance to continue the cycle by commenting on his commenting on the fickleness of Twitter.
I’m not really sure what the answer is here. Did twitter (and blogs) help at the height of the protests in Iran? I think so. Is there much more that social media could be doing now to help those in prison? I don’t know.
Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, dissidents produced hundreds of texts that were circulated underground, usually in limited copies secretly made on mimeograph machines. Known as samizdat (literally “self-published”), the works’ authors frequently were jailed merely for having the temerity to write and make a few copies. Yet these missives were the groundwork for the revolutions of ‘89, and more than a few have endured long after the regimes they criticized collapsed.
Today, many dissidents instead use social media to convey similar ideas (and not just in Iran). But the nature of social media means that instead of 10,000 words on the power of the powerless, we get 140 characters on the evils of the Ahmadinejad regime. Such efforts may convey important information, but they cannot by any stretch of the imagination build the intellectual framework necessary for nonviolent social change.
To put it another way, how in the world can Mousavi’s tweets have even remotely the same impact and power as Martin Luther King’s or Vaclav Havel’s essays? They can’t.
And if you think I’m wrong, let me note that my previous point is 30 characters too long to be usable on Twitter.
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Via the NYT’s Lede blog, video of the protest today at Tehran’s Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, site of the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan:
Every time I worry that the government has successfully shut down the Greens, they demonstrate their resilience. I cannot help but be reminded of Vaclav Havel’s extraordinary essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”
The [dissident] has not committed a simple individual offence isolated in its own uniqueness, but something incomparably more serious. By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. he has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. . . .
he has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the [dissident] has addressed the world. he has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. he has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth.
Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. THere are no terms whatsoever on which it can coexist with living within the truth and therefore everyone who steps out of the line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. . . .
[A]s long as appearance is not confronted with reality, it does not seem to be appearance. As long as living a lie is not confronted with living the truth, the perspective needed to expose its mendacity is lacking. As soon as the alternative appears, however, it threatens the very existence of appearance and living a lie in terms of what they are, both their essence and their all-inclusiveness.
What is happening in Iran is now a collective exercise in which a significant part of the population is trying, as Havel says, to live the truth. The government continues to insist that its lie is reality. But the reality is that it never again can portray its fiction as truth.
Havel, again:
This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance.
Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.
Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it.
The people of Iran have stopped living within the lie. The only question is whether they can speak truth to power long enough to overcome those in government who still deny to accept the new reality.
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The smug brutally repressive dissident-murdering vote-stealing illegitimate peace-loving huggybear democratic government of Iran is shocked — shocked! — that a government would use violence to silence dissent (h/t):
Iran summon[ed] the Italian Ambassador to Tehran Alberto Bradanini in protest against the violent suppression of anti-G8 protesters. Bradanini was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday to hear Tehran’s concerns about the “violent suppression of justice-seeking protesters by the Italian police.” A Foreign Ministry statement included Iran’s “strong condemnation” of the “suppressive actions…which are clear breaches of civil freedoms and fundamentals of democracy.”
This is not to make light of the Italian response to the protests, which may have been a little over the top. But I do find a bit of irony in this quote from one of the protestors:
“We are sick of the powerful governing without consulting the people,” said Martina Vultaggio, 29, one of the [G-8] protest organisers.
No wonder the Iranians are upset. There is only one thing worse than the “powerful governing without consulting the people.”
The powerful governing after consulting the people and then blatantly ignoring their will.
I wonder when Khatami-Ahmadinejad clique will get around to filing a protest against itself.
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Daniel Larison compares and contrasts events in Honduras and Iran:
[L]et’s try a thought experiment about this question anyway. We are appropriately wary of people who invoke a political crisis to justify extraordinary and extra-legal measures. This sort of rhetoric can be so easily abused for the sake of augmenting and consolidating the power of those in government that we should normally be skeptical of such claims. That said, isn’t it the case that the response of Honduran political and military institutions to presidential illegalities is exactly the one that most of the Western world has been openly desiring in Iran?
Isn’t one of the main problems in Iran that the military and interior ministry colluded with Ahmadinejad in his crime? Suppose they had grabbed him on June 12, the day of the election, and thus prevented him from carrying out his fraudulent power-grab. Would we take seriously for a moment anyone gravely intoning about the need for proper procedure and rejecting the result as an illegal action against the democratically-elected president? (Obviously not, because very few, even the most ardent Mousavi cheerleaders, genuinely think of Iran as having anything like a real democratic process.) One way to look at the Honduran situation is that the political and military institutions removed Zelaya early on rather than permitting him to continue to abuse his office. They did what their counterparts in Iran could not or would not do. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that they were able to take such action because Honduras is a constitutional democracy in many important respects that Iran simply isn’t. . . .
Despite the serious inconsistency on one level, there is a common thread connecting the overzealous pro-Mousavi Westerners to the overreacting international condemnation of the Micheletti government in Honduras. What really irks Westerners who have invested so much energy into Mousavi’s cause is not that Iranian laws were broken or its constitution violated, but that the will of the majority was presumably thwarted and in any case the people were denied their voice. Mousavi believes he is fighting for the integrity of the Islamic republican system and its rules; his Western admirers embrace him (however absurdly) as a symbol of majoritarian democracy. Even though the whole of Honduras’ political class was in agreement that Zelaya had to go because they believe he threatened the Honduran constitution, this does not matter to the rest of the world. Zelaya is a populist demagogue who apparently still has considerable mass support, and it is his democratic support that counts for far more in the view of the rest of the world than his lack of respect for constitutional limits.
I find this to be a fairly disingenous argument. Zelaya was democratically elected in what absolutely everyone (even his opponents) agrees was a free and fair election. Zelaya’s undemocratic moves took place after he assumed office. The case in Iran is vastly different — the ruling elite (including Ahmadinejad) apparently* stole an election, claiming that they had a popular mandate.
The key is not whether Zelaya and Ahmadinejad had a popular mandate, but rather whether they acted in the best interests of sustaining a healthy democratic system. The answer in both cases is no. But it’s equally accurate to say that the opposition in Honduras also failed to meet this standard.
It’s been decades since advocates of democratic governance (even in the Bush Administration) have thought that elections are the be-all and end-all of democracy. The reality is that “democracy” means much more than elections, and that both Zelaya’s attempts to hold on to power and the parliamentary-military coup against him were undemocratic. To suggest that this is about populist majoritarianism fails to recognize the reality that neither side in Honduras has acted in the long-term interests of a stable democracy.
The problem, of course, is that the international community (or, for that matter, individual states) cannot merely say “a pox on both your houses.” Someone has to be in charge. The question is not who is right and who is wrong but rather who will do more damage to the prospect for continued democratic governance in Honduras (and beyond).
The real solution is some sort of compromise.
Adopt new constitutional measures that a) explicitly outlaws the use of a majority vote in a referendum to amend the constitution and b) provides for some sort of process to remove a President acting extra-constitutionally in a manner that does not require the military to grab him/her while still in his/her pajamas.
Then turn the government over to a caretaker, preferably someone not embroiled in the current dispute.
Allow Zelaya to return. Hold a new election, preferably within the next few months, in which Zelaya is allowed to stand as a candidate. Invite international observers and the UN. And then accept the results as the mandate of the Honduran people.
Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. But somebody has to come up with something that addresses the reality that neither side is acting in the best interests of the country.
_____
*I say apparently because we never really will know. The reality is that Ahmadinejad may have won a majority of votes, but not 65 percent as claimed. Then again, he may not have.
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The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison on the hard right’s unhappiness with Obama’s Iran policy:
Americanists believe that any statement from the President that fails to build up and anoint Mousavi as the preferred candidate is discouraging to Mousavi and his supporters, because they apparently cannot grasp that being our preferred candidate is to be tainted with suspicion of disloyalty to the nation.
It is strange how nationalists often have the least awareness of the importance of the nationalism of another people. Many of the same silly people who couldn’t say enough about Hamas’ so-called “endorsement” of Obama as somehow indicative of his Israel policy views, as well as those who could not shut up about his warm reception in Europe, do not see how an American endorsement of a candidate in another country’s election might be viewed with similiar and perhaps even greater distaste by the people in that country.
This is an excellent point. As a friend said to me, the hard right’s strategy has more to do with pushing Obama to take engagement off the table than it does about supporting the Greens.
I still believe that Obama has chosen the right path so far. I think that talking to a Khameni-Ahmadinejad-led Iran would damage both the Greens and our own credibility. But it’s far too early to suggest that talk is off the table. Although, as I noted in my previous post, regime change is increasingly unlikely and there is no good reason not to try to isolate Iran, the reality is that China, Russia, Syria, Hezbollah, and other actors will not disengage.
That changes the dynamic, and argues even more for the Administration’s current line.
And yes, I recognize the internal contradiction between what I’m saying here and what I said in my last post. That’s because my previous post represents my hopes and this one represents my recognition of reality.
I don’t want to see the United States (or anyone else for that matter) engage with these vicious bastards. But given the fact that two of the P5+1 already have recognized the election results, idealism is no substitute for the way the world actually works.
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Green balloons over Tehran:
I think at this point, barring a move by Rafsanjani to displace Khameni, regime change is highly unlikely. But the Greens will not go quietly into the night, and the legitimacy of the current government is gone.
That said, as the Tiananmen Square massacre (and Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Poland in 1981 and. . . .) demonstrated, regime illegitimacy is not, in and of itself, a recipe for regime change. Over time, other governments usually chooses amnesia over isolation — it’s better to pretend that the regime in question really isn’t that bad, and, well, you know, there’s nothing you can do about having to engage.
But Iran isn’t China. And even with the nuclear issue, there is no real reason for the world to engage. The challenge for the Greens inside Iran and their friends outside will be to sustain the outrage for as long as possible. It won’t be an easy task.
Insh’allah.
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Words by W.B. Yeats, music by the Waterboys (h/t). Warning: final images are quite distressing.
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NYT’s The Lede blog, which has done an outstanding job covering events in Iran, just posted the following:
Several Iranian bloggers are writing that another rally is scheduled for Thursday. According to an update posted on Twitter from someone who has had reliable information on the opposition rallies in the past:
Thursday’s rally will be @ 4:30pm from Vali-asr intersection to Enghelab sq.
That got me wondering. Who’s behind these tweets? Given the fact that a) the government is monitoring Twitter and b) they’re also monitoring The Lede, Andrew Sullivan, and Nico Pitney, are those who tweet/report on the rallies inadvertently helping the government? After all, there are ways to share this information via more private channels such as direct messages in Twitter.
By all reports, the Basiji and other government forces used considerable brutality to crush the rally in front of Parliament today. Mousavi has claimed that he did not call for it. Government troops/paramilitaries were waiting for the protesters. And helicopters were overhead monitoring the protesters’ movements. At least one participant called it a trap.
So I ask again. Who’s behind these tweets? Is the Khameni/Ahmadinejad faction behind them? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but if the government is using twitter to spring traps that are leading to the death and injury of regime opponents, the media (old and new) need to think about their role — and their (our) potential complicity.
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As Dave Weigel and Lara Rozen have already reported, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) yesterday filed for cloture, moving Harold Koh’s nomination to serve as State Department Legal Advisor to the floor of the Senate. Although the timing depends on other Senate business, the vote is likely to take place as soon as tomorrow.
For those unfamiliar with the Senate’s mysterious ways, the Majority Leader routinely asks unanimous consent to close debate on a given issue and move to a vote. If any Senator refuses, then “debate” remains open and cannot be closed without a sixty-vote super-majority. This is what used to be known as a filibuster, back in the day when Senators opposing cloture actually had to stay on the Senate floor and speak.
These days, anyone can put a hold on any bill or confirmation and prevent a vote from taking place. The end result is that the Majority Leader has to round up sixty votes for cloture before a regular vote (requiring only a simple majority) on the bill or individual can go forward.
In Koh’s case, two Senators — John Cornyn and David Vitter — refused to agree to a vote. Reid’s decision to move forward means that he thinks he has the votes. What we do know is that Richard Lugar (R-IN) has endorsed Koh, which brings the number to 60, assuming that all Democrats support Koh — and that they all show up, which is perhaps the biggest problem.
That means that it’s important that other moderate Republicans — particularly Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, George Voinovich, and Mel Martinez — need to be brought on board. If you live in their states (Maine, Ohio, Florida), I urge you to call their offices and urge them to vote for cloture (and preferably to confirm him as well). If you live in Nebraska or Pennsylvania, I’d make sure that Ben Nelson and Arlen Specter are on board.
In addition, if you live in any state with a Republican Senator — even if that Senator has been a vocal opponent of Koh’s nomination — I would urge you to call his/her office and make the following point.
Conservative Republicans have, over the past week or so, accused President Obama of failing to take a strong enough stand on the crisis in Iran. I have argued in the context of other human rights issues (such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre) that one of the reasons Obama (and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) have failed to make stronger statements in support of human rights is the dearth of human rights experts at State and NSC — individuals with the heft necessary to push for stronger assertions on behalf of the victims of human rights abuses.
If conservative Republicans truly want to see a stronger response by Obama to Iran (and China), they should want to do everything possible to expedite the confirmation of genuine human rights experts who can make strong arguments capable of countering those in (primarly) Foggy Bottom who would ignore such issues. As a former Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (a position for which he was confirmed by a unanimous Senate vote), Koh has the knowledge to raise such concerns within the bureaucracy. And as a veteran of the clearance wars, Koh knows how to fight the fight.
To be clear, I think Obama’s approach to Iran has been the right one (and I would guess that Koh would say the same thing). That said, I remain concerned about the fact that no one appears to be managing U.S. human rights policy at the moment. If Republicans want stronger human rights language from the Administration, it would help if they stopped blocking those who have the knowledge and ability to ensure that human rights issues remain a paramount component of U.S. foreign policy.
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Clearly, I do not have the time or depth of knowledge needed to offer anything new about the crisis in Iran. Thankfully, several experts are on the case, and others are compiling the tweets and other information for us.
So I just want to take one moment to make doubly sure everyone has seen “The Neda Video” and mulled over its implications. You can see all 16 seconds of it here, but just know that it is quite graphic.
Robin Wright speculates on the implications here: “In Iran, One Woman’s Death May Have Many Consequences.”
Dan Drezner chimes in on the Foreign Policy blog. He strikes just about the right tone when he says the video has now created a focal point for the opposition and this has foreboding consequences for the regime. He cautions, however:
To repeat a theme: this does not mean that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei will fall from power (See: Tank Man, Goddess of Democracy). What it means is that even if they maintain their grip on power, they have lost all of their legitimacy.
So what does an Iranian regime devoid of legitimacy mean for the region and for U.S. foreign policy?
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Suzanne Maloney of the Saban Center has just posted a new article for Foreign Affairs on the Iranian election crisis titled “Clerical Error.”
Summary: “No matter who emerges victorious in Iran’s current struggle for political power, the future of the Islamic Republic will look nothing like the country the world has known for the last 30 years.”
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Long-time readers of this blog know that Molly and I appear to have an uncanny knack for scheduling vacations right when unexpected world events take place. Last summer, it was the Russian invasion of Georgia. And now it’s Iran.
As it happens (and unlike last summer), I had long intended to go computer-free for a few days (and for the first time since 2003, as far as I can remember). Despite what’s happening, I’m not going to change those plans. So you won’t hear from me for a few days — probably next Tuesday.
The good news is that our old friend Midwest McGarry will be dropping by and offering his thoughts when time allows.
And here’s hoping I return to a new day in Iran.
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I have no illusions about Undip’s ability to track the rapidly changing events in Iran. I encourage you to stay tuned here, but you also should be reading four sites:
NYT’s The Lede blog
NIACInsight, the blog of the National Iranian-American Council
Nico Pitney over at Huffington Post
Ignore the cabletubes (with the exception of the BBC) — they’re not worth your time.
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Via Boing Boing:
The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.
1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.
2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.
3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.
4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.
5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind…
I’ve already reset my Twitter account (you can follow me here) to Tehran . I suggest you do the same. . .
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Here’s Obama’s response to events in Iran. As Spencer Ackerman notes, just about pitch-perfect:
Now look at what John McCain said in contrast:
DAVID GREGORY: Let’s get right to it on Iran. How does the U.S. deal with an emboldened Iranian President Ahmadinejad?
SENATOR JOHN McCAIN: Well, we lead; we condemn the sham, corrupt election. We do what we have done throughout the Cold War and afterwards, we speak up for the people of Tehran and Iran and all the cities all over that country who have been deprived of one of their fundamental rights. We speak out forcefully, and we make sure that the world knows that America leads - and including increased funding for part of the Farda, Iranian free radio.
Take a moment to think about how the current government in Iran is going to react to this: McCain, whether he realizes it or not, is reminding them of just what the United States did for to Iran during the Cold War: support a coup against a democratically elected government in 1953 and from that point until his overthrow in 1979, support the Shah (whose secret police, to use McCain’s own words, systematically “deprived” Iranians of their “fundamental rights” including, I would note, the right to choose their government).
It’s almost as if McCain doesn’t know his history. Either that, or he continues to look at the world through the blinders of the Cold War. And while it’s true that In some parts of the world — such as Eastern Europe we were (mostly) champions of what is right and good, including human rights and democracy.** — in other parts (including Iran), the United States was a very significant part of the problem.
In John McCain’s world, we are all Iranians now, just as we were Georgians last summer.
I understand McCain’s instincts: rooting for the underdog certainly is a good thing, and I would guess that most Americans want the anti-government demonstrators to succeed. But I think that most Americans also recognize that the United States cannot be perceived by the current government as actively supporting the opposition. That is exactly what the Ahmadinejad regime wants. Perhaps more importantly, the Iranians in the streets don’t want vocal U.S. support — they too recognize the danger.
There are many conservatives out there, including Bill Kristol and Patrick Buchanan, who agree with and support Obama’s approach. Here’s what Buchanan said (via Andrew Sullivan, who continues to provide some of the best coverage out there):
No U.S. denunciation of what took place in Iran is as credible as the reports and pictures coming out of Iran. Those reports, those pictures are stripping the mullahs of the only asset they seemed to possess — that, even if fanatics, they were principled, honest men. . . .
When your adversary is making a fool of himself, get out of the way. That is a rule of politics Lyndon Johnson once put into the most pungent of terms. U.S. fulminations will change nothing in Tehran. But they would enable the regime to divert attention to U.S. meddling in Iran’s affairs and portray the candidate robbed in this election, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as a poodle of the Americans. . . .
The dilemma for America is that the theocracy defines itself and grounds its claim to leadership through its unyielding resistance to the Great Satan—the United States—and to Israel. Nevertheless, Obama, with his outstretched hand, his message to Iran on its national day, his admission that the United States had a hand in the 1953 coup in Tehran, his assurances that we recognize Iran’s right to nuclear power, succeeded. He stripped the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad of their clinching argument—that America is out to destroy Iran and they are indispensable to Iran’s defense.
I usually find Buchanan’s views loathsome, but I think he gets it here: don’t t give the bad guys more fuel, and don’t suggest, as McCain does, that the U.S. should provide more funding to opposition voices.
Michael Cohen over at Democracy Arsenal has a good summation of why McCain’s approach is the wrong one:
Let’s be very clear: what is happening in Tehran is not about us. It’s about the people on the streets risking their lives so that their voices will be heard. If we want to help those people the best thing we can do is speak softly and wait for the drama to play itself out. If we are appearing to take sides and if we are seen as openly supporting the opposition movement we won’t be doing them any good at all. As Spencer Ackerman perceptively notes, “American rhetorical support will immediately become a cudgel in the hands of Ahmadinejad.”
To turn John McCain’s silly argument around, leadership is not simply about beating one’s chest and taking strong moral stands, it’s about listening to those on the ground in Iran and having a nuanced understanding about the impact of American statements in a country where there is no great love [lost] for the United States, particularly among supporters of Ahmadinejad. The course being recommended by. . .McCain would have the ironic of hurting the cause of the people [he is] seeking to support.
Let’s see how long it takes the Ahmadinejad regime to re-broadcast McCain’s remarks. I give it less than a day.
**The exceptions, of course, being Hungary in 1956 and Prague in 1968, when we mouthed platitudes in the face of tanks.
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Churchill once said that war planners always do an excellent job of preparing for the previous war. Similarly, authoritarians do an excellent job of shutting down the last revolution’s technology. Iranian authorities were ready to shut down satellite TV, email, even access to certain websites. But they forgot about Twitter, which not only is chronicling the revolution, but also is providing real time information on proxies Iranians can use as the government belatedly tries to block access.
Some are arguing that proxies shouldn’t be shared on the #iranelection tag since the government will just block them. But if they aren’t shared, how will people know what to use?
It’s become a cat and mouse game. The government blocks access to proxies, new proxies are created, they’re shared, and then the government shuts them down.
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If you track #iranelection on Twitter, you’ll see that it is refreshing at a rate of about 30 to 40 tweets per second. Not all of that is coming from Iran, of course, and a lot of it is retweets.
But it’s still pretty remarkable. According to at least one report, part of the reason is that the regime is having a much harder time shutting down access to twitter than other social media.
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I had hoped to provide some analysis on Iran’s election, but I’m pretty late to the game and there’s already a lot of good commentary out there. In fact, I think Michael Tomasky hits many of the points I would have made, particularly that what Ahmadinejad (and others running the country) did is tantamount to a coup:
The way the customs and normal practices were broken; the way the results were announced so prematurely; the way the internet and cell-phone capabilities were shut down; the way dissent is being shut down. These are anti-democratic practices to put it mildly, and they are hallmarks of coup-like behavior. In any case “coup” isn’t a legal term and there’s a bit of subjectivity in it.
And as to the results themselves. I mean, honestly, people. A guy who was polling at 39 percent a few days earlier got 64 percent? Fine, fine, polls may be unreliable, but that is a new definition of unreliable.
Or consider this. According to figures, 11.2 million more Iranians voted this year than in 2005. And Ahmadinejad allegedly received 7.2 million more votes than he did in 2005. That would mean that the incumbent got about 65 percent of all new voters. Really? In a country with double-digit unemployment, inflation near 25 percent, and the bulk of his populist promises from four years ago not only not delivered on but crashing to failure?
. . .If you’ve managed the economy that badly and the electorate bulges by about 28 percent (roughly speaking, 40 million to 29 million), I don’t care how adept you are at religious demagoguery, you are not getting 65 percent of that 28 percent. If you can demonstrate to me that anything like this has ever happened anywhere, I will look into it and report back fairly. But I doubt you can. Remember, we’re talking 25 percent inflation.
I would likely have bought it, as would’ve most people, if they’d followed procedures and announced on Sunday morning that Ahmadinejad got 52 or 53 percent. So it’s not that I (and others) don’t imagine he could have won. It’s about the circumstances, and to some extent the highly improbable 64 percent number.
That was my first reaction as well: 64 percent? Really? You’d think that authoritarians would have figured out by now that if you’re going to steal an election you should at the very least look credible.
I’d find it interesting to see another number here: what percentage of the electorate is in Tehran as opposed to other parts of the country? If Iran is like many countries outside the West, a huge percentage of its population is in its largest city. This is important for one simple reason: Mousavi’s strength is primarily in Tehran. If the population in the outlying regions is larger, then an Ahmadinejad victory is slightly more plausible.
The best way I can make this point is to pass on two photos from The Big Picture blog. First, a voter in Tehran:
Next, a line of voters in Qom:
I want to be careful not to oversimplify this. The Big Picture also has photos of a woman in full hijab voting in Iran. And clearly Ahmadinejad had significant support in Tehran, particularly among older and male voters. But as Tomasky noted, the notion that 65 percent of those who did not vote in the last election chose Ahmadinejad stretches credulity, particularly given the fact that his campaign never demonstrated any Obama-esque organizational capacity.
As I write this, the situation remains in flux. Mousavi’s supporters continue to demonstrate, in defiance of a ban and despite beatings over the weekend, and Mousavi himself appeared at a major rally in downtown Tehran. And Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni has urged an review of reports of irregularities (which may be a tacit recognition of the absurd outcome or may be merely a stalling tactic designed to slow down or stop the street demonstrations).
Over at TPM, Josh Marshall wonders whether Khameni’s call for a review of the results is the first crack:
On the face of it, Khamenei could call for a review and then decide that it all checks out and that’s the end of it. But it’s my experience that that’s not how these things play out. When regimes ride these crises out successfully they almost always do so with a united phalanx. You simply do not grant the premise of the critics. Force, much as we like to think otherwise, is often quite efective. (See Tienanmen [sic] Square.) Once you do, once you legitimize the premise of the protests, which can quickly shift the momentum of the drama, it’s a very slippery slope for the regime.
Perhaps more fundamentally, the people running the regimes aren’t idiots. They know the pattern too. And the decision to break the united front, to get into a discussion of the legitimacy of claims against the regime, usually signals internal dissension that is making that united stance unsustainable. In other words, this sort of development is perhaps not a cause of regime weakness but a symptom.
There’s some merit to his point, but as he himself notes, this might be a pro forma move designed to add further legitimacy to the results.
The other big unknown, of course, is the response of the Obama Administration. To date, it’s been pretty muted, which some on the right have regarded as an abandonment of Iran’s pro-democratic forces. But as Spencer Ackerman has noted, the Iranian-American community doesn’t want the Administration to say much right now, recognizing that anything other than a call for respect for human rights would in all likelihood be counterproductive.
UPDATE: Via Andrew Sullivan, who has done extraordinary work tracking the events in Iran, raw video of today’s demonstration:
Photos: Qom — AP/Kamran Jebreili; Tehran — REUTERS/Caren Firouz, both via The Big Picture and used under the principle of fair use.
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It’s been fascinating to watch today (and for that matter over the past week) as Iran moves to what may (or may not) be a fundamental shift toward democratic governance. I hope to have additional analysis once the election results become public, but in the meantime, take a moment to check out the Guardian (UK)’s coverage, which includes live blogging and some really interesting graphics, such as this interactive bubble chart showing how Iran is governed:
More to follow once results are in.
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In case you missed the big South Asia story of the weekend, here it is, via WaPo:
Unable to crush street protests Sunday that spilled out of this city and threatened to reach the capital, the Pakistani government announced early Monday morning that it would restore the former chief justice of the Supreme Court and a group of other deposed judges in a major capitulation to opponents.
The move reflected the weakening position of President Asif Ali Zardari, a key U.S. ally, but it also signaled a peaceful end to a mounting political crisis in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 172 million. Zardari had resisted bringing back former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry for months, but he faced mounting pressure from a broad coalition of opponents who demanded the reinstatement of Pakistan’s independent judiciary and threatened to march on the capital, Islamabad, until Chaudhry was brought back.
The decision marked an extraordinary victory for Pakistan’s legal community, which has been agitating peacefully for the judges’ reinstatement for the past two years, and for Zardari’s major political rival, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who joined the lawyers’ crusade last month and quickly became its most forceful advocate.
It’s always the same in Pakistan, to a point of dreary familiarity: protests = instability = weakened regime. I get the feeling that WaPo merely trots out the same basic story every eightteen to thirty-six months. With some minor changes, this lede could have been about the protests that led to Musharraf’s downfall, or even about the events that led Musharraf to depose Sharif.
So in the spirit of helping WaPo save time the next time this happens, I thought I would create a Pakistan version of Mad Libs:
Unable to verb type of demonstration day of week that spilled out of city in Pakistan and threatened to reach the capital, the Pakistani government announced early following day that it would verb political opponent in a major capitulation to opposition group .
The move reflected the weakening position of current leader , a key U.S. ally, but it also signaled a peaceful/violent end to a mounting political crisis in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 172 million. Current leader had resisted verb political opponent for unit of time , but he faced adjective noun from a broad coalition of opposition figures , who demanded reinstatement of/release of/an end to opposition figure/branch of government and threatened to type of protest in/on the capital, Islamabad, until political opponent was brought back.
The decision marked an extraordinary victory for Pakistan’s pro-democracy group/fundamentalists/NGO community/opposition party , which has been agitating violently/peacefully for political opponent ’s reinstatement/release for the past unit of time , and for current leader ’s major political rival, rival’s name , who joined the synonym for protest last unit of time and quickly became its most forceful advocate.
It has become a cliché to describe Pakistan as a failed state. I don’t think that’s entirely accurate — Pakistan hasn’t failed so much as found itself stuck in a cycle of pseudo-democracy, corruption/incompetence, coup, dictatorship, protest, end of dictatorship, and then back to pseudo-democracy again. That’s not so much failure as it is a long, slow death spiral. And with each turn, the fundamentalists get a little stronger.
Regardless of how you describe it, Pakistan clearly wins the award for the country most-likely-to-screw-up-everybody’s-plans-by-creating-a-big-honking-mess-at-home-or-in-neighboring-state. Afghanistan may be a chaotic mess, but it doesn’t have nuclear arms. North Korea may have nuclear arms, but it doesn’t have to contend with Islamic fundamentalists. Iran may have Islamic fundamentalists trying to build a bomb, but a) they’re Shiites rather than Sunnis, and thus do not enjoy the widespread support of other radical Islamists; and b) they haven’t (as far as we know) built the bomb yet.
Pakistan, in contrast, has it all: it is an enormous mess; has a system of government that has remained consistently unstable; is a nuclear power; and has a large contingent of religious fanatics within its borders.
We are still paying for Bush’s inexplicable failure to demand that Musharraf take action against those in the ISI and military who were responsible for sponsoring both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Kashmir. In the end, the Bush Administration’s Pakistan policies — rather than Iraq or Afghanistan — may be remembered as its most disastrous foreign policy mistake — as well as the greatest risk to Obama’s ability to purse a smarter course in foreign policy.
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There are so many things I want the new Obama/Clinton foreign policy team to do. But each individual item scares me a little… I think I am still very gun shy from the neo-con years. I worry that any one progressive move in international affairs will allow the right to cripple the new presidency for months. (Clinton’s early stumble on gays in the military is illustrative of this fear.)
If we simply roll out each policy initiative on its own, they will get picked apart by the right-wing echo chamber.
So… I think the answer is to roll out massive change in a single day. We need a major plan for re-engaging America with the world. And the new agenda should have so many facets that it leaves the neo-cons quaking in their boots wondering where the hell to aim first. (Newt Gingrich’s plan for the first one hundred days of his speakership gets sort of at what I mean here.)
So here are the policy changes I would include in the Rose Garden announcement on “America Rejoins The World Day.”
What else should be on the re-engagement list?
| posted in American foreign policy | 1 Comment
It looks like a certain French leader has started drinking McKoolaid instead of champagne.
French President Nicolás Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government. Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”
You know that Bush and McCain are desperate when they turn to the French to try to pull off an October surprise.
Memo to Matt Groening: no more cheese-eating surrender monkeys. From now on, they are to be referred to as brie-loving champions of freedom.
| posted in American foreign policy, politics | 0 Comments
Twenty questions I would like to see asked at the debate tonight:
1. Are we at war with Pakistan? Senator Obama, given your pledge to go into Pakistan, if necessary, to take out Osama bin Laden, do you support President Bush’s current counter-insurgency efforts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? And Senator McCain, when Senator Obama made those comments, you accused him of being reckless. Do you now think President Bush is being reckless?
2. Numerous reports have indicated that the State Department is woefully underfunded and understaffed. Secretary Gates, among others, has urged Congress and the President to take steps to address these concerns. Congress has largely been unsympathetic. What would you do, as President to make the State Department more effective, and to give it the resources it needs to succeed?
3. Do you support making USAID a cabinet-level agency? Given the current financial crisis, can the United States afford to continue its foreign assistance programs? Do you support reestablishing the US Information Agency or a similar construct to coordinate and strengthen our public diplomacy?
4. Is the United States more or less safe and secure than it was on September 12, 2001? Why or why not?
5. Senator McCain, can you please tell me what the difference is between Russian incursions into Georgia and American incursions into Pakistan? Don’t both involve a large power moving into territory controlled by a democratic ally of the United States?
6. Some have argued that the American century is over and that China will soon be the world’s dominant economic and political power. Do you think that is accurate? Why or why not? Would it matter if the United States wasn’t the biggest dog in the yard anymore?
7. Senator McCain, five former Secretaries of State, including two who have endorsed you, have called for dialogue with Iran without preconditions. You have stated your opposition, and your candidate for Vice President has suggested that such views are naive. Yet when it came time for you to choose someone to brief Sarah Palin on foreign policy, you asked Henry Kissinger, one of those five, to do it. Do you still believe that it is not possible for the United States not to talk to Iran?
8. Senator Obama, are there any situations where you think it would be necessary to set conditions before meeting with a foreign leader? In other words, is there anything that any leader can do that would make it impossible for you to meet with him or her?
9. Senator McCain, your running mate has suggested that the United States should not second-guess Israel should it decide to attack Iran. Is that your view as well? Senator Obama, do you agree or disagree?
10. Both of you have called on the Bush Administration to close Guantanamo and to end the practice of torture. There is growing evidence that Bush Administration officials may have violated U.S. law as well as treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. Would you favor the investigation of such allegations and the prosecution of those, up to an including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, found to have broken American laws including statutes against war crimes?
11. What can the United States do to strenghten the United Nations?
12. Should the United States ratify the International Criminal Court treaty?
13. What can the United States do to prevent genocide? Would you favor military intervention by U.S. forces if it could help prevent a genocide? Would you have intervened in Rwanda? What are you going to do in Sudan?
14. What is the one foreign policy issue that you think is currently under the radar but will have an impact on your administration?
15. Most of the world has come to regard the United States as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. What steps would you take to reverse that?
16. Have we “lost” Latin America? What steps would you take to reverse growing anti-Americanism in the region?
17. When this campaign started, no issue was bigger than Iraq. Now it appears to be an almost forgotten issue. Senator McCain, given Prime Minister Maliki’s outspoken desire to see American troops leave, why do you continue to oppose a phased withdrawal from Iraq? Senator Obama, is there any situation where you can see American troops remaining in Iraq beyond the timetable you outlined?
18. Is the war in Afghanistan lost? Would you favor a surge there along the lines of what happened in Iraq?
19. Senator McCain, how can we afford to stay in Iraq and deal with the financial crisis at home? Senator Obama, you have suggested moving troops in Iraq to deal with the growing crisis in Afghanistan. Can we afford to do that as well?
20. Given the fact that Russo-American relations have cooled considerably since Russia’s invasion of Georgia, what steps would you take to ensure continued Russian-American cooperation on anti-proliferation measures, including not only implementation of Nunn-Lugar, but also the situations in Iran and North Korea?
Add your own questions in the comments below.
| posted in American foreign policy, media, politics | 0 Comments
One of the tragedies of the current campaign is that the two candidates have not yet had a serious debate about America’s role in the world. Both McCain and Obama have laid out very different visions — to oversimplify, McCain’s robust nationalism versus Obama’s effective internationalism. But instead of debating the future of American foreign policy, the campaign has degenerated into discussions about such salient topics as lipstick, pigs, celebrities, and bridges.
Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic suggests that this isn’t a coincidence — McCain is pursuing a vicious campaign because he knows his worldview won’t get him elected.
Like many people who have covered John McCain, I think of him as a deeply serious man, preoccupied with America’s defense and its position in the world. So I’ve been confused for the past few days, trying to figure out why he’s allowing his campaign to make a circus of this election, leveling unserious and dishonest accusations about Barack Obama’s positions on sex education and Sarah Palin.
Then it came to me: The answer can be found in. . .John McCain’s philosophy of war, and in particular with the doctrine of preemption, which McCain still endorses. . . . McCain knows that preemption isn’t the easiest sell these days: “It’s very hard to run for president on this idea right now,” he told me.
So, what do you do when one of your core ideas is out of sync with the predispositions of the American public? You spend your days talking about lipstick on pigs. This might win him the election, but I’d rather see him debate preemption.
I think this is largely true. Thanks to the Bush Administration, preemption isn’t exactly a popular concept right now. It’s not merely intellectually bankrupt, it’s also despised by the rest of the world. What McCain, Bush, Cheney, and I presume, Palin (once they explain everything to her) view as America asserting its interests is viewed in the rest of the world as exceptionalism and even imperialism.
Four more years of such a policy may destroy what’s left of American power and credibility in the world. Right now, Russia is asserting itself, and they’re doing it by using the Bush playbook. While no one is paying attention, Venezuela is quite effectively building a new anti-American bloc in Latin America (more on this in a future post). Erstwhile American allies are beginning to reevaluate whether it makes sense to continue to make friendship with a weakened, angry, and often bellicose United States a priority in their foreign policy. And perhaps most troubling of all, a strong and assertive China is confidently asserting itself — not merely by hosting the Olympics, but in a number of other ways, most notably through massive foreign assistance projects that just happen to give China access to the natural resources it needs to continue to grow.
Let’s be blunt: nobody is really that impressed with us anymore. We’ve become the annoying guest who insists on dominating the conversation but who has little of value to contribute to the conversation. We’re on the verge of becoming the kid who was a star athlete in high school but who never reaches similar heights in adulthood.
It’s not only that we’re despised. It’s that we’re increasingly a laughingstock. If McCain is elected, it could be a tipping point. Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and a number of lesser states will see no reason not to organize in opposition to our interests. We will find it harder to assert ourselves, or even to be heard.
To be clear, I’m not interested in appeasing or even appealing to such states. But I’m also not interested in poking all of them in the eye with a sharp stick, especially when we do it constantly and frequently simultaneously. McCain doesn’t seem to understand that there are a finite number of states you can anger before people start seeing you as the problem — even when you’re in the right.
It’s almost as if McCain wants to go it alone. After all, that’s what has worked for him in campaigns. Why not turn it into a foreign policy?
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Yowza, boys and girls, we have a new poll! Please be sure to vote:
If you’re using an RSS reader, you’re going to need to go to the Undip home page to vote. You can find the poll in the left-hand column.
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