Day: September 11, 2012
GOP critique: Russia and Latin America
This is the fifth installment of a series responding to the Romney campaign’s list of ten failures in Obama’s foreign and national security policies.
Failure #7: A “Reset” With Russia That Has Compromised U.S. Interests & Values
The “reset” with Russia has certainly not brought great across the board benefits to the United States, but things were pretty bad between Washington and Moscow at the end of the Bush Administration, which had started in friendly enough fashion with George W. getting good vibes from Putin’s soul. Bush 43 ended his administration with a Russian invasion of a country the president wanted to bring into NATO. Neither our interests nor our values were well-served by that. But there was nothing we could do, so he did nothing.
A reset was in order. With Putin back in the presidency, it should be no surprise that it hasn’t gotten us far, but certainly it got us a bit more cooperation during Medvedev’s presidency on Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan than we were getting in 2008. The Russians are still being relatively helpful in the P5+1 talks with Iran and the “six-party” talks on and occasionally with North Korea. Their cooperation has been vital to the Northern Distribution Network into Afghanistan.
The Republicans count as demerits for President Obama his abandonment of a missile defense system in Europe, without mentioning that a more modest (and more likely to function) system is being installed. They also don’t like “New START,” which is an arms control treaty that has enabled the U.S. to reduce its nuclear arsenal.
I count both moves as pluses, though I admit readily that I don’t think any anti-missile system yet devised will actually work under wartime conditions. Nor do I think Iran likely to deliver a nuclear weapon to Europe on a missile. It would be much easier in a shipping container.
The fact that the Russians could, theoretically, increase their nuclear arsenal under New START is just an indication of how far behind the curve we’ve gotten in reducing our own arsenal and how easy it should be to go farther. The Romneyites don’t see it that way, but six former Republican secretaries of state and George H. W. Bush backed New START.
The GOPers are keen on “hot mic” moments that allegedly show the President selling out America. This is the foreign policy wonk version of birtherism. In this instance, they are scandalized that he suggested to then Russian President Medvedev that the U.S. could be more flexible on missile defense after the November election. The Republicans see this as “a telling moment of weakness.” I see it as a statement of the screamingly obvious. Neither party does deals with the Russians just before an election for some not-so-difficult to imagine reason.
More serious is the charge that President Obama has soft-pedaled Russia’s backsliding on democracy and human rights. I think that is accurate. The Administration sees value in the reset and does not want to put it at risk. The arguments for targeted visa bans and asset freezes against human rights abusers are on the face of it strong.
The problems are in implementation: if someone is mistreated in a Russian prison, are we going to hold Putin responsible? The interior minister? The prison warden? The prison guards? How are you going to decide about culpability for abuses committed ten thousand miles away? And if the Russians retaliate for mistreatment of an American citizen in a Louisiana State penitentiary, what do we do then? While many of the people involved may not care about visas and asset freezes, where would the tit-for-tat bans end up?
Russia has unquestionably been unhelpful on Syria, blocking UN resolutions and shipping arms to the Asad regime. The Russians have also supported Hugo Chávez and used harsh rhetoric towards the United States. But what Romney would do about these things is unclear. His claim that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe is more likely to set the relationship with Moscow back than help us to get our way.
Failure #8: Emboldening The Castros, Chávez & Their Cohorts In Latin America
I’m having trouble picturing how the octogenarian Castros have been emboldened–to the contrary, they are edging towards market reforms. Obama’s relaxation of travel and remittance restrictions has encouraged that evolution. It would be foolhardy to predict the end of the Castro regime, but cautious opening of contacts is far more likely to bring good results than continuation of an embargo that has never achieved anything.
I’d have expected the Republicans to compliment Obama on getting the stalled trade agreements with Colombia and Panama approved, but instead they complain that he waited three years while negotiating improvements to them that benefit U.S. industry. Given the difficulty involved in getting these things ratified, it is unsurprising that President Obama doesn’t want to reach any new trade agreements in the region, or apparently anywhere else.
Hugo Chávez looms large for the Republicans. They view him as a strategic threat. Obama thinks he has not “had a serious national security impact note on us.” That Chávez is virulently anti-American there is no doubt. But to suggest that he seriously hinders the fight against illicit drugs and terrorism, or that his relationship with Hizbollah is a threat we can’t abide, is to commit what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” We’ve got a lot bigger drug and terrorism challenges than those Venezuela is posing.
Except for Mexico, Obama has not paid a lot of attention to Latin America. That’s because things are going relatively well there. If Chávez goes down to defeat in the October 7 election and a peaceful transition takes place, it will be another big plus, one that will redound to Obama’s credit. There are other possibilities, so I’d suggest the Administration focus on making that happen over all the other things the GOP is concerned about.
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Principles and practicalities
Allison Stuewe reports from Georgetown’s Bunn Intercultural Center:
The auditorium was crowded and the audience excited. Despite the hype, Dennis Ross did not disappoint last Thursday speaking on “The Arab Awakening and Its Implications.”
Ross began by discussing the meaning of “awakening” as a metaphor for the revolutions in the Middle East. “Arab Spring” connotes fleeting, rosey and easy. “Arab Awakening,” on the other hand, implies a longer struggle, self-realization and transformation. Participants in an Arab Awakening will behave differently in the long-term. Awakened citizens get to make demands of those who lead them whereas subjects do not expect reciprocity.
Citizenship also entails the acceptance of a leader’s justification for holding power. All leaders must justify their right to lead. For a monarch, the justification is inherent to the institution, whether it comes in the form of a narrative about a blood line or a divine right to rule. For a citizen of a state that is not a monarchy, the justification for leadership is based on an exchange of obligations.
Given the lack of any significant secular political presence outside of Mubarak’s government, it is not surprising that Islamists have come to power after the recent awakening. Hosni Mubarak ensured that this would be true when he limited the ability of secular groups to organize politically. Furthermore, secular groups are often viewed as elitist and have been tainted due to their perceived association with Mubarak’s failed regime.
Though Mubarak also suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, he allowed the mosque to be used as a place to decry the ills of society, challenge authority, and build an alternative infrastructure to assuage the hardships many Muslims face in Egypt. When Mubarak’s regime fell, the Muslim Brotherhood, unlike any secular group, was well-positioned to fill the leadership void.
What now? The people who have united in Egypt are aware of their rights as citizens and are still thinking about the obligations of a legitimate leader. It is too early to determine if there will be an “Islamist Winter” simply replacing the Mubarak regime. The Muslim Brotherhood has positioned itself as an organization that takes care of the citizens in Egypt, which means the Brotherhood has significant obligations that it must live up to if it wants to maintain its legitimacy.
As for the implications of the Arab awakening for the United States, Ross highlighted American “principles,” or the values that make up our own justification for power: rights for minorities and women, protection of free speech, and duty to the international community. He said that we must stick to our principles in our relations with Egypt, which stands to gain aid and support from powerful countries if it sticks to them as well.
Ross concluded with a few practical notes about Iran, Israel, and Palestine. Dealing with the Iranian nuclear program will require bringing unrelenting pressure to bear. He likewise emphasized practical steps for Israel and Palestine to restore confidence in each other and foster stability in a tumultuous period.
Ross identified six steps for Israel and six for Palestine, which are described here, and an additional step for each: both countries must socialize their children to understand each other differently. Israeli children must have frequent positive interactions with Palestinians and Palestinian children must have positive experiences with Israelis.
“Principles” and “practicalities”, value-laden ideals and pragmatic decisions, were fundamental Ross’s presentation. Successful political action requires a sophisticated understanding of when it is right to invoke one category and when to utilize the other.
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No better way
Here is the dilemma: either the man I enjoyed talking with when he sat in Baghdad as vice president of Iraq is a murderer, or nine Iraqi judges have reached an unjust conclusion under political pressure. And condemned him to death.
Tariq al Hashemi is a good political conversationalist. A single open-ended question like “how are things going in Iraqi politics?” would open a floodgate of interesting information on who was doing what to whom, who was up and who was down, his party priorities and his view of other party priorities.
After 45 minutes or so of this one day I noted he had not mentioned the hydrocarbons law, which everyone in Washington thought was uppermost on his mind because he would want to ensure the Sunnis their fair share of oil revenue. No, he responded, that is an American priority. The oil revenue was in fact being shared according to population. His priority was to ensure the bulk of it went to the central government in Baghdad. He feared passing the law too soon (we were talking I think in 2007 or 2008) would put the bulk of the revenue in regional and provincial pockets. He was anxious to avoid a premature hydrocarbons law that would weaken the national government.
This was all very reasonable and logical, stated with occasional laughter and constant good humor. His staff had called an hour before the meeting asking that we arrive early. That is an unusual request–vice presidents are late a good deal more often then early–so I asked his assistant why. He replied that the vice president wanted to get rid of the prior guest. “Who was that?” I asked. The American ambassador as it turned out.
Of course the issues at stake are bigger than personalities and diplomatic chit-chat. The question is whether we have left in Iraq a system that can evolve in a democratic direction, protected by the rule of law. Or, have we left an increasingly autocratic system now capable of condemning an innocent man to death for political reasons? Friends in government tell me I shouldn’t assume the charges against Tariq al Hashemi are false. I once went to the wrong building to meet him and found myself among his drivers and body guards, who did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. They are the alleged physical perpetrators of the crimes he is accused of, or so I understand from the press reporting.
I’ve met a number of people later convicted–in courts more reliably fair than an Iraqi one–of war crimes and crimes against humanity. I know that you really can’t tell who is capable of such crimes. Some war criminals wear the ugliness of their crimes on their faces, but many do not. Almost all of them think their crimes are necessary ways of protecting themselves, their friends and their sectarian or ethnic group. Few people really embody evil. Almost everyone thinks such crimes are committed for good purposes.
I don’t want to choose yet what I think of Tariq al Hashemi, who has denied the accusations. There are allegations that witnesses against him were tortured. It seems to me he still deserves the benefit of doubt. There will be an appeal. If the verdict was unjust, there is no real reason to expect the appeal to be any better. But there is no better way to decide these things.
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