Day: November 21, 2014
Lame duck flies again
Like just about everything else in Washington today, how you feel about the President’s action on immigration depends on how you feel about the President. He has become the political touchstone for everyone.
Dislike him? You are likely to think it is a mistake for him to act without Congress, he doesn’t have or shouldn’t use the authority needed, and the Republicans in Congress should teach him a lesson by holding up confirmations or screwing with the budget, maybe even causing a government shutdown, suing the bastard or impeaching him.
Like him (as I do), you are likely to think it is a good move, both politically and administratively. We are never going to be able to deport five million people, the Congress has failed to act, and this move will solidify the Democrats’ link to the Hispanic and Asian communities. If Republicans don’t like it, they can up the ante in the next session, when they will have majorities in both houses.
So we are at loggerheads one more time. Unlike most others, I’m not prepared to bemoan that. It seems to me immigration is an important issue that should be subject to the full force of political contestation. Who is allowed into the country does determine who we are.
The outcome of the political debate is of course uncertain, but I am betting that the Republicans in Congress will up the ante. They cannot afford to have the Democrats walk off permanently with the lion’s share of Hispanic, Asian and Silicon Valley votes, as they did during the Roosevelt era with black votes.
A lot of people are going to be surprised if the Republicans turn around and offer a path to citizenship (which the President’s action will not). But it is their best political move, provided they can gather enough of their own party’s votes to back it. When you have lemons, make lemonade.
In the wake of the drubbing the Democrats got earlier this month in the mid-term election, it has become popular to pronounce their inevitable decline. I’ve been through too many cycles of that media trop with both parties to believe it likely true this time. But keeping the President and his views under wraps during the last election did nothing to help the Democrats stem the tide of Republican success. Getting him out front and firm about what he believes in and what he wants to do strikes me as more likely to fix the Democrats’ ailing fortunes.
Polarization may not produce the paralysis everyone expects. On immigration, Atlantic and Pacific trade, the response to the Islamic State, preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, engaging with China and other truly priority issues there are large measures of agreement and strong pressures for serious progress. A lame duck president is also a free-wheeling president. He did well in Asia last week. This week looks good too. The lame duck flies again.
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In the long term…
Proceedings kicked off at Thursday’s Middle East Institute conference with a panel on A Middle East in Flux: Risks and Opportunities. Moderating was peacefare’s Daniel Serwer, presiding over a star-studded panel consisting of Juan Cole, professor at the University of Michigan, Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria, Paul Salem, vice-president for policy and research at the Middle East Institute, and Randa Slim, director for Track II initiatives at MEI.
The panel focused on long-term forces and factors in the Middle East and North Africa. Cole drew attention to the youth bulge, low investment, lack of jobs, and the effects of climate change on the region. The population is growing as resources are shrinking. Dwindling water supplies will create immense social pressures, and may lead to mass migrations and regional tensions, including over water supplies. Sea level rises will inundate the low-lying plains in southern Iraq, areas of the Nile Delta, and other inhabited areas.
This will happen as hydrocarbon production levels off and even declines, squeezing countries made rich by petrodollars. The region needs sustainable development, Cole underlined, which means a shift towards solar and wind power and a big increase in technological capacity.
Agreeing on the importance of resource and economic constraints, Salem underlined the collapse of already weak and corrupt institutions in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. With the failure of the Arab uprisings in these countries, the region has lost its sense of direction, as well as any semblance of regional governance. There is no real alternative to accountable, inclusive and ultimately democratic governance, but it is difficult to see how the region will get there from the disorder into which it has fallen. It needs high-value exports that it is unable to produce today.
The currently oil-rich region must adapt now, before it is left without options. Ford predicts that the Middle East will become a major food-importing region. To generate the revenue needed to pay for this food, the region will need to attract investment. Businesses will want to see fair and honest rule of law before sinking money into the region. Failing to develop economies producing more than commodities risks condemning the region to an impoverished and unstable future.
The panel considered the role of religion in the future of the Middle East, but it said notably little about sectarian or ethnic strife, which is more symptom than cause. Ford hopes that Islamists will be pulled towards the center of the political spectrum, as political Islam cannot provide the answers to all the socio-economic problems faced today. But this only applies to those Islamists actively engaging within the political system. There will be no single solution. With the region in such a dramatic state of flux, Salem cautions that there is a developing contest for defining the region’s cultural identity. Sheikhs, militias, and jihadists are competing to define the future of society and culture in the Middle East. The cacophony risks drowning out more moderate reformers and democrats.
Slim underlined the importance of Iran’s trajectory for the region as a whole. Whether a nuclear deal is reached and the choices Tehran makes about support for its allies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine will affect Iran’s relations with its neighbors in the Gulf and with the West. There is great potential for improvement, but also serious risk of deterioration if those in Tehran who want a nuclear deal have to pay for it by giving others a free rein to do what they want regionally.
The West must engage better in the battle for hearts and minds. For Slim, the key battle ground is online and across smart phones. ISIS releases thousands of propagandistic tweets, videos and online messages every day. Jabhat al-Nusra has a similarly slick media operation. Media literacy in the Arab world is high. The West should not let extremists be the only voice in cyberspace. Twitter and Facebook are theatres in the war against violent doctrines just as much as Kobani.
But the ideological battle cannot be won only through convincing words and media campaigns. Robert Ford recalled the warm reception he had received at a university in Algeria, which had a link with a university in the US. The few graduating from the program had all found employment. The result was goodwill from an much wider section of the local population. Providing quality education, developing human connections , and working to build the skills that bring employment and prosperity are vital in combating ideologies that preach hatred.
The path to long-term success and stability in a region facing increasing chaos can be summed up by two 1990s political catch phases. Bill Clinton’s “it’s the economy, stupid”, and Tony Blair’s “education, education, education.” Military campaigns against threats such as ISIS may sometimes be necessary, but in the long term the region’s future will be determined by other factors: demographic and climate pressures, the search for dignity, institutional strength and economic success or failure. The US and its allies cannot determine the outcome. They can only encourage and support local actors as they seek to achieve stability and prosperity.
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